Instead, Jeff focused on Judge Gloria Taylor. At the divorce settlement, after she’d awarded Lara the house, car, severely garnished Jeff’s salary and agreed to an additional clause in the restraining order to include Daniel, he’d been almost certain that after delivering her judgment, she’d turned away and smirked. Now, Jeff was watching out for it.
“I hope for their sakes, you have no children of your own,” he spat.
She ignored him, all dignity, leaned to her left to grab her bag and smirked.
That was the moment Jeff knew. That was the moment Jeff knew that right from the very start, he’d never been in with a shot. The system was rigged against him. Against fathers. Against men.
Against boys.
That Jeff was a war veteran had not counted in his favor. Nor the fact he held a steady job working night security. Nor the fact he was a good father. Nor the fact he’d tried everything for his son.
That Lara was insane had not counted against her. Nor the fact she was a piece of shit. Nor the many instances of adultery. Nor the many boyfriends who breezed in and out of her new life.
The room evaporated.
Jeff jerked awake, pushed himself off the driver’s side window and peeled away half of what remained of his face. A large chunk of skin remained on the glass. Powerless to fight the tiredness that fought him from within, he slumped forward against the wheel.
Drake’s head appeared through the basement curtain. “Hey, Suds,” he had a strange look to him, uncertain and cautious, “looks like you got yourself a visitor.”
Jeff had been zoned out on the couch, staring blankly up at the floorboards and spiderwebs. He sat up and then Daniel came running in and threw both arms around his dad, his Labrador Retriever, Max, pattering in right behind. “Danny, how’d you find me? You know you’re not supposed to…” it had taken a second for it to sink in. He brought his son to arm’s length and couldn’t believe it. “What happened to…”
Daniel was wearing the grass-stained jeans he’d worn playing catch with dad, the torn t-shirt from when he’d fallen off his bike, scuffed and filthy sneakers from kicking soccer balls in the dirt, the long hair had been cut, the earrings were gone, the nail polish had been removed. “Dad,” he was weeping and couldn’t talk through the palpitations.
“Easy, son, dad’s here.”
“Dad, I want it back, I want you to take it all back,” he gazed at his father with imploring eyes.
Jeff tried to hide the horror that beset him and could only do so by bringing his son back into his chest. He’d never felt so helpless. What could he possibly do? How could he possibly take it back now?
It was already done.
“Danny, I…” what could he say?
“Dad, please.”
There was a crash. Drake shouted a warning from above and then numerous heavy feet were pounding down the steps. Two cops rushed in. Restrained Jeff. Pushed his face hard into the cushion. Suffocating him. Cuffing him.
A feminine voice, the social worker. “Don’t worry, Fantasia, you’re safe now.”
Jeff evaporated through the couch.
It was the horn that roused him. Hurt his ears. Forced open his eyes. The flickering streetlights stung. Buildup of saliva. Painful hunger.
Jeff removed his leather gloves.
At some point during his insentience, the fingers on his left hand had turned a sickly green. No, not just his fingers, his hand too. Arm? Too burned to know. Red. Raw.
Gangrene?
He couldn’t feel his hand. But he could move it. Wiggle his fingers. Before, he remembered, getting burned had numbed all feeling except for where the scorched and untouched flesh met around his wrists, where the burns were not quite as bad. That had been the place that hurt the most but now, only his right side felt pain, not the left where the skin had phased to an almost ungodly color.
Yet there, he felt strong.
Despite the rest of his body feeling drained.
The muffled cries restarted from the trunk.
“Right,” Jeff grabbed the handle and opened the door, “it’s time.”
Outside, a cool breeze swept trash across the street. Garbage bags lay stacked five, six, seven high, nearly all torn apart by animals or people for scraps. How far Jeff’s old street had fallen.
Two zombies had somehow found themselves in the middle of a huge swampy pile of garbage. They thrashed it around, almost looked to be swimming in it but couldn’t figure out how to free themselves. “Ah yes, zombies.” He’d almost forgotten about them.
Down the street, another had been alerted by Jeff’s sudden appearance and began shambling in his direction.
He popped the trunk and Bergmeyer glared back, terrified, curled up, shivering.
“Sorry for keeping you waiting.”
At some point, she’d crammed the jack down the judge’s mouth. Judge Gloria Taylor was now definitely a zombie. There was nothing behind the eyes anymore, if there ever was, and the jack had been crushed by her jaw.
Jeff shook his head and tutted at the lawyer. “Is this how you’re supposed to treat your superiors? Looks like you can kiss goodbye to ever making judge. Oh, in case you haven’t worked it out yet, yes, that is Judge Taylor.”
“Please…” she began, her face was glowing with whatever frothy white transparent residue her body’s defenses were producing after being scorched, “I was only doing my job. I’d have been fired if I…”
“Yes, you were.” Jeff exhaled then grabbed her by what the fire hadn’t taken of her ponytail. “There was once a time I gave up a lucrative post in favor of doing the right thing. That decision gave you an extra seven years, just so you know, and I shudder to think how many innocents you’ve taken in that time.” He tugged her out and when she tipped over the rim onto the asphalt, he was left holding her ponytail.
Jeff was suddenly racked by a dull throbbing pain shooting through every limb. He clenched his fists and fought it, endured it. Don’t give in, you’re so close.
He peered down at the hideous Taylor in only a large white bra, grabbed the rope that bound her hands behind her back and hauled her out. One of her shoulders popped from its socket but she made no sign of any discomfort. Reaching down, he grabbed the lawyer by the neck and tugged her up.
But fuck, he’d done it, he’d finally fucking done it. He was here, with the two criminals, about to enter his old house where Lara was thinking to wait out this strange new threat. “Let’s go.” They crossed the street.
The zombie had come close and Jeff had to increase his speed, not wanting to be placed in a position that might call for harming one of these creatures who’d brought this day. Bergmeyer came meekly enough but Taylor felt like an erratic meth addict being frogmarched to the police station. The zombie changed angle to account for its intended prey and lurched for Jeff but he used the judge to bat it aside and it tumbled into a stack of trash before being submerged by a pile falling from above.
Number 1015.
He was pleased to find the saucer magnolia he’d planted so many years before was thriving, its pink leaves still blooming in this late summer. But his chicken coop had been removed, as had the firewood rack he’d lovingly installed. That pissed him off. The front lawn was overgrown and unkempt. Moss covered the cobbled approach and weeds were shooting up from between the cracks. The windows were filthy and the exterior badly needed a paint job. The curtains were drawn but the flickers of candles were just barely visible through the crack.
Jeff felt an incredible surge of something between euphoria, excitement and contemplation, the knowledge this was the end of his road, the culmination of his journey, what the final years of his life had all been about, had built towards. This was it. He would soon be at peace.
He attempted to open the door and, not surprisingly, found it locked. He pulled out his old key just as a blurry silhouette appeared through the distorted glass. The key didn’t work either. Not a surprise. He politely knocked and the silhouette stepped back. There
was nothing else to do but use force.
He began kicking, even whilst the lawyer and the judge flapped and raged in his hands. The door had a plastic exterior and frame, which gradually began to warp under the barrage. He felt strong, despite everything, aimed lower and noticed the door slowly beginning to bend. A man from next door had braved the outside to step onto the porch, to see what was causing the noise. It was no longer old Jim who always liked to feed the birds, which was saddening.
“Fuck off!” Jeff yelled and gave the door another boot. On the next kick, it flung open.
“Hi, honey, I’m home,” he sang. Ah, he’d had that line on ice seven years at least, and to finally see the look on Lara’s face made it all worthwhile.
And there she was.
To finally see her again, now, after all these years could only ever have made him pause. They hadn’t all been bad times but his mind had long since acted to erase any memory that might serve to paint Lara as anything more than a witch. Like the lawyer and the judge, the ex-wife was not human.
Neither was she any longer the slim brunette who’d once captivated him, at a minimum, the years had added thirty pounds to her frame, as well as streaked her hair with gray. Where her face had once been clear and smooth, now she was dull and lined. The most glaring change, however, was what lay behind the eyes. Lara was no longer the arrogant, swaggering woman who’d always used her sexuality to her advantage, the years had stripped her of that ability, and now the eyes held only frustration and resentment, a woman who’d thrown away an entire future for a few cheap thrills many years gone.
Was it worth it?
For a moment, she wasn’t sure who she was staring at, and that even the zombie that was lurching for her inside her own house was temporarily ignored was saying something. She gaped, bent her neck forward, and Jeff allowed her a moment for it to register.
He grinned and stepped further into the house, three monsters; a zombie, a naked man with fourth-degree burns covering his entire face and body come to kill her, and a lawyer. “Give it a few more seconds, it’ll come,” Jeff laughed.
“Jeff?” She hissed, glaring at him, the missing nose, lips and ear, his almost complete nakedness and fried body.
He glanced at her from top to bottom. “Looks like I’m the hot one in the relationship now.”
She stepped back and touched the wall, twisted her head to the left. A man, three hundred pounds, at least, ran out into the hall and raised his arms.
“Don’t mind me, mister…”
Jeff jerked away and gave him room to pass, pulling the zombie with him as he lumbered for the exit and closed the door.
“Karl, come back,” she wailed, “I need you.”
Jeff could only shake his head. Ten years before, he’d have died before allowing any harm to come to this woman, but then she’d given him a son. He shoved Bergmeyer towards Lara and then indicated with a nod toward the living room. “In you go, both of you.”
Lara continued glaring, “Jeff, why are you here.”
“You always knew this day would come, now go on.”
She went and Jeff strengthened his grip around the judge’s nape. With the other two moving away, the zombie renewed its effort in twisting around to bite his hand and Jeff had to be alert to it.
“You remember Isla Bergmeyer? I found her hard to forget.” He closed the door after himself, they were all together now, in his own living room. His eyes instinctively scanned the room for something special, something he wanted. It wasn’t there.
Lara shook her head, terrified.
Jeff smacked the lawyer about the head. “Perhaps you could refresh her memory.”
Bergmeyer’s hair had almost completely wilted now, though in the candlelight, her skin didn’t appear as badly burned as before. The transparent goo covering her face was sticky. “Lawyer,” she muttered, all fight gone. By this point, she probably just wanted to die.
“Isla,” Jeff helped, “was the head attorney at the surgery, you know, the one that gave my son puberty blockers before inverting his penis. I destroyed the place, just so you know. Murdered every last single person who worked there.” The recognition came to Lara slowly, which was the incredible thing, that she could forget Bergmeyer’s name as well as the face, when it was just one of the things that had been forever burned into Jeff’s mind. “If I could ever have talked you out of your madness then Isla talked you back … all for a paycheck.” Jeff jerked the zombie. “I’ll save you the trouble, this is the judge. Well, she used to be. Now, the three of you will die together.”
Lara fell to her knees. “Please, it was all a bad mistake, I realize it now, Fantasia wanted to be a girl and I was just…” Jeff slapped her with the back of his hand. She fell sideways onto the carpet and commenced screaming.
“Save it, nobody’s coming for…” his body was overcome suddenly with a series of violent shudders, his sense of smell returned, delivering a pungent, almost painful, yet intoxicating stink of meat. Hunger exploded inside his belly. His arm seized up as he lost all feeling and then Judge Taylor was slipping out from his grasp.
It lunged for Bergmeyer, tearing out her throat.
The lawyer couldn’t even scream, not whilst her vocal cords were being wrung out from inside of her and she collapsed to the floor as the judge clambered on top and continued removing sinews and cartilage with her teeth.
Lara was up as fast as her two-hundred pounds would allow, her screaming forgotten, and was running for the door. She turned left for outside and Jeff had to dig deep to catch up, his legs feeling like lead. Lara pulled the door open but three zombies were even now shambling across the lawn. She yelped and slammed it shut, dashed back the way she came, just missed Jeff’s grasping arms, and made a beeline for the kitchen. Jeff could hear what had to be the scraping of a knife being pulled from its block, her heavy breathing hurt his ears. She pattered back and when she emerged, Lara was holding his favorite steak knife, a wedding gift from Drake.
She ran towards Jeff but skirted at the last moment, turning instead for the stairs. She tripped and slid back down. Jeff lunged for her ankle but she discarded her slipper and scrambled back up.
Jeff wasn’t sure how long it took him to crawl, claw and pull himself up the stairs, but with every passing minute he felt heavier and heavier until every flexion of his elbows and knees was like trying to bend steel. His vision, which since the fire had been like a black gauze was being held over his eyes, had turned green. Despite losing an ear, every sound stabbed at his brain. He could sense the woman was hiding in the bathroom, which was the only room in the house with an inside lock, and right now she was sitting on the edge of the bath, blade in hand, palpitating and sweating, her every pant like a thump to the head.
When he reached the top, he needed the banister to pull himself onto his feet. He stumbled into the wall but used it to aid his slide toward the bedroom. When he reached the opened door, he fell hard against the wardrobe, smashing the mirror and breaking off one of its legs. Spare pillows and clothing rained down.
It was there, on top, he could see it, smell it, sense it, the thing he wanted, needed before it was too late.
He shook the wardrobe and all kinds of crap rattled about, fell off, a scrabble set clobbered him on the head, cushions, hats, shoes, bags but not the thing he wanted. He growled, felt a surge of pain shoot up through his spine, the sounds of her trembling limbs deafening, her smell overpowering, he could already taste her. Jeff launched himself at it and the bronze urn overturned and rolled off.
The thump of it striking the floor felt like a sledgehammer to the skull but he reached down to collect it, his body stiff like treacle. His head sagged and he had to jerk himself back, his entire body was numb and heavy, his every movement arthritic. Jeff staggered out the bedroom, onto the landing and faced the bathroom before leaning against the wall and allowing himself to gently slide down onto his ass.
“I’m waiting…” he snarled, his final words. He clutched the urn tigh
t against his heart.
She’d have to come out eventually.
Afterword
Oh, man, thank God that’s over. If you think writing a post-apocalyptic novel is hard, you should try doing it from an American perspective as an Englishman backwards.
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Love you all.
K. Bartholomew.
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The Day After: A Zombie Apocalypse Thriller Page 27