Running with the Horde

by Joseph K. Richard

  Morning sunlight found me in my chair as it pierced my good eye like a razorblade. I groaned as I found I couldn’t move without considerable pain. It felt like there was a rail road spike driven into the center of my face and I couldn’t breathe. Everything was stiff, I must have slept wrong I thought.

  Then I remembered the beating Mark gave me and how I almost shot him. I groaned again and tried manually prying my eyelid open.

  “Sssssh! They’ll see us, George!” a panicked child’s voice whispered.

  “That you, Jacob?” I still couldn’t get my eye to open.

  “Quiet!” Mark this time.

  My eyelids finally parted as I massaged my temples. Mark and the boys were in a tight group sitting backwards on the couch peering over the window sill. The front yard was crammed with a thousand zombies filling the area all the way down to the street.

  They stood there watching the house not making a sound. It was exceptionally creepy. I stood carefully to my feet on weak legs, the eyes of the zombies I could see were fixed on me. Mark was glancing back and forth between them and me trying to figure out what was happening.

  “They’re watching you!” he hissed.

  I stretched as far as I could tolerate the pain and flashed him a dirty look.

  “So it would appear, Mark,” I said over my shoulder and headed toward the kitchen on leaden legs.

  I grabbed a gallon of water from the table. Put the stopper in the drain and began pouring the water over my head into the sink. Mark entered the kitchen dragging both boys by the collar and stealing glances over his shoulder to see if the zombies were going to try coming through the windows into the living room.

  “You need to tell me what’s going on, George.”

  My wash water was dark red as I gingerly scrubbed my face. I looked out the window over the sink at the driveway filled with the undead, all intently watching my movements.

  “I don’t need to do shit for you,” I said with my face in the sink.

  He knew I had him there. I had only myself to worry about. He had everything to lose. He wasn’t going to last long without another adult. The fact he and the boys had survived as long as they did without me was a miracle and Mark knew it.

  “Why are they here?” he stuttered.

  The three of them stood there frozen, looking petrified at me as I grabbed a handful of paper towels from a roll on the counter and began drying my hands and face. I looked at him as I leaned on the sink counter and gently blotted my tender face with the towels.

  “Please, George?” he pleaded.

  Still I said nothing as Mark dropped to his knees like a sack and sagged to the ground with his hands in his face. The sound of his weeping and the sight of him rocking back and forth did nothing for me.

  I had known the man less than a day. In that time he had been a cranky, impatient spaz. I excused his behavior to stress and loss until he unleashed on me last night. Now I just found his constant fragile emotional state very irritating.

  It wasn’t him that moved me to speak, it was the sight of Jacob and Sam. The older boy stood over his father and gently patted his head trying to comfort him. Jacob stood there wringing his tiny hands and staring at his dad with a terrified, tearful expression on his face that said his favorite person in the world was breaking down in front of him and he had no idea how to fix it.

  “They’re here for me,” I started, “They’re here because apparently when I’m in extreme emotional or physical distress something inside me calls to them and they come. Like when I am suddenly attacked and nearly beaten to death for example.”

  Mark stopped rocking and looked up at me like I had horns coming out of my head

  “That look right there,” I said, “That’s why I couldn’t tell you before. I’m not crazy.”

  I recalled telling him the exact opposite the night before.

  “I said I was crazy last night but that was different, just so you know,” I wasn’t doing myself any favors.

  “If that’s true,” he said carefully as he wiped his face on his sleeve, “Why are they still here?”

  He leaned on Sam as he got to his feet and pulled both boys protectively to his sides like he was afraid I was going to attack them. I was getting angry again.

  “You don’t need to worry about them. They’ll leave when I tell them to,” I said.

  “I see, okay well, I guess we just wait around for you to do that then,” he said positively.

  His tone suggested I was missing a few chess pieces from my side of the board.

  “C’mon boys, we’ll just go chill out upstairs for a while. Sam still needs to rest.”

  He smiled at me as he shoved the boys ahead of him and hustled out of the room. I sighed and went about draining the bloody water and wiping down the sink with dirty paper towels.

  Chapter 32

  “Christmas”

  Mark and the boys locked themselves in their room. I was in a great deal of pain and exhausted so I swallowed a few Vicodin I found in the bathroom and passed out on my bed.

  I had a very realistic and troubling dream about Daisy, she was cold, scared and angry, hiding with some people I didn’t recognize. They were in a dingy ground-floor room in what looked like an apartment building. She was huddled with her arms around her knees sitting on a couch in the crowded and dirty room with another woman.

  She was slowly rocking back and forth staring at a fixed point on the wall, a picture titled, Evocation of Butterflies in a cheap plastic frame. It was slightly askew. I could hear the guttural roar of a large horde surrounding the building. A few people with guns were staring outside through a barricade of scrap wood. They looked like they were bracing for a last stand.

  Plywood and 2x4 boards began to tremble under the pressure of the unstoppable force of the undead. The barricade shuddered and flexed as it gave its last effort to resist the inevitable breach. The wood finally exploded inward as the men fell back and began firing into the crowd of zombies trying to climb through a car-shaped hole.

  Daisy was terrified as she rose on trembling legs and pressed herself as far into the wall as she could go. The zombies overwhelmed the shooters and swarmed over their bodies, Daisy’s scream of pain ripped through my body as something wrenched her upright by the hair.

  I awoke in the gathering darkness, my sheets soaked with sweat. I sat up and took a few deep breaths with my bare feet on the cold hardwood floor. Was it really a dream? Was it a vision? I couldn’t imagine Daisy dying that way in a hail of flying bullets and gnashing teeth. My head was throbbing again and I dry swallowed another pill as I considered what I may have witnessed.

  When I’d last seen her, the undead had come to her aid when she screamed. Now it appeared they had been about to attack her. I assumed her zombie prey status had changed because she had gotten pregnant with my baby. What if I’d been wrong? What if she lost the baby or had never been pregnant? What if I called the zombies on that day while Tegan kicked me? It happened when Mark attacked me and I didn’t remember doing it. It could have happened with Tegan as well. There was no way to know for sure.

  It was a dream but it had felt so real. I worried for Daisy more than ever but could do nothing about it.

  I stumbled angrily down the hall toward the rooftop deck. Mark’s door was still shut. I put my ear to it, they seemed to be playing a board game they’d found. I stepped out onto the roof to see the zombies were still there. I connected to them, the surge of blue light filling my body with a surge of manic energy.

  For a moment I felt like I could bend steel. The moment passed quickly and I was stupid old me again full of aches and pains but the connection to the zombies remained strong. There were well over a thousand undead surrounding the house on all sides. All of them standing like soldiers at attention awaiting instruction or dismissal. I exhaled and sent them away.

  The outer perimeter of the ring began to disburse immediately, doing a reasonably fast zombie shuffle. The rest followed suit as room opened u
p.

  I couldn’t leave them standing guard even though I wanted to. I didn’t know if I could prevent them from attacking the house while I left. I had to go out. According to my mental calendar and Jacob’s, it was Christmas Eve and I had shit to do.

  I waited until the last stragglers had finally left to find someone else to terrorize before I walked back into the house.

  “I’m leaving for a while,” I called through Mark’s door.

  I heard Mark cuss and scramble for the door which jerked open and I was looking down at his anxious face. My nose started hurting just looking at him through my one good eye.

  “You’re going out there?” he asked nervously.

  I glanced over him, the boys were sitting on the bed staring at me. They were playing a game called Parcheesi.

  “That’s what I said. I’ll be back.”

  “You can’t be serious?”

  “The zombies are gone, you’ll be fine.”

  “The fuck they are, I’ve been checking all day,” he replied testily over his shoulder as he dashed for the deck to get a look.

  I watched the back of his head as he pulled the shade back and looked into the front yard.

  “What the f…,” he trailed off.

  He shouldered past me into his bedroom and ran to the window for a look at the side of the house.

  “Where the hell did they go?” he demanded as he turned back to face me. “Lemme guess, you sent them away?”

  He stalked over to me until we were chest to chest. His face was beet red and he looked ready to blow up again. The boys were silent as statues wondering if they were about to witness another episode of Blood Sport.

  I was ready this time. If he even flinched at me, I was going to throw him through the upstairs window regardless of Jacob and Sam. Instead, he took a step back and smiled up at me.

  “Did you make a general announcement they should punch out for the day?”

  I could almost taste the sarcasm.

  “No, not you, not the master of zombies. No, you didn’t need to use words did you? You sent them away with your mind, right?”

  “Whatever Mark,” was my brilliant rejoinder, “I’ll be back in a bit.”

  I stepped around him and headed for the stairs. I heard him go back in the room and say something to the boys and then run to catch me.

  “Hey!” he called.

  I ignored him as I plodded down past the landing on the stairs and into the living room. Mark was right on my tail.

  “That’s it isn’t it? I was right! You think you sent them away with your mind!” he chuckled to himself as he trailed after me.

  I spun on him and shoved him backwards. That made him laugh harder. I stood there staring at him until he stopped laughing and got a semi-serious look on his face.

  “That’s right, Mark. I used my connection to them through my mind and sent them away from here. I did it because I need to go out and who knows if this old house could keep one zombie out, let alone a thousand. I did it for Jacob and Sam because even though we only just met, I like them, Mark, and I would hate to see anything happen to them because of me. As long as you stay quiet and stay in that room, you should be fine until I get back.”

  He started to say something but I cut him off.

  “Don’t worry, asshole, I’m not taking the car. It’ll be out there if there is an emergency or if you decide you’d be better off without me,” I turned and left him there smiling to himself and headed for the kitchen.

  I was rooting through the keys I’d left in a pile on the portable dishwasher when I noticed him leaning against the entrance to the kitchen watching me.

  “George?”

  “What now, Mark?”

  “You know you’re fucking bat-shit crazy right?” he sneered.

  “Maybe I am. Just like you are a throbbing dickhead,” I said with a shitty smile of my own.

  I found the key I wanted and turned to leave.

  “We’re never gonna see you again are we, George?” he asked.

  “Only if you’re not here when I get back. If that’s the choice you make for yourself and your boys, I understand. But hey do me a favor, okay?”

  He didn’t answer so I continued unsolicited.

  “When you get to wherever you’re going and you find yourself trapped and surrounded by zombies. In that moment right before they rip you to pieces, think of me giving you the finger.”

  That said I walked out the door and slammed it behind me. I was epically pleased with myself to have had the last word.

  The first thing I noticed when I stepped outside was how fantastically cold it was. I turned right back around and headed inside to beef up my wardrobe. This was a bummer because it really diminished the ‘last words’ impact for me as Mark was still standing in the kitchen watching.

  I marched quickly to the front closet of the living with my head down. An earlier search of the house, conducted out of boredom, yielded a big box full of winter outerwear. I added a thick sweatshirt and a heavy wool scarf to my parka and gloves and repeated my exit routine.

  “Be safe out there, Midnight Rider,” Mark said with a smirk.

  He ended up having the last word after all.

  It had been almost ten years since I’d last ridden a motorcycle and it had been nothing at all like the lovingly maintained Softail idling greedily below my butt. True, I had important stuff on my agenda for this night before Christmas but this ride was my gift for myself.

  In spite of the cold, I could barely contain my excitement. I found one of those half-shell skull helmets in the garage near the bike and had crammed it down over my black stocking cap. My gloves had been replaced by a pair of leather riding gloves. A set of clear goggles adorned my eyes and leather chaps covered my blue jeans.

  In my imagination I looked like a genuine Hell’s Angel. In reality I probably more closely resembled one of Charlie’s Angels, if Charlie had been into backpack wearing dudes.

  I shifted into first gear and rolled slowly down the driveway only popping the clutch twice. My headlight illuminated a dark road cluttered by the occasional abandoned vehicle. My pulse quickened as I rolled onto Lowry Avenue, the breeze molesting my cheeks with its icy touch, my night rider adventure began.

  I was completely miserable after two blocks moving at only twenty miles per hour. I now had a profound understanding of why motorcycle riding in Minnesota was a seasonal mode of transportation.

  The wind crawled inside the seams of my clothing until it felt like I had ants made out of ice swarming on my skin. I purred along Lowry Avenue in the moonlight only stopping occasionally to warm up or find an alternate route around car wrecks in the road.

  A few times I rode past houses where a room or two was lit with dim light. I was happy there were other survivors out there still hanging on. I felt guilty about my unsettling advantage in coping with the undead.

  I knew I could do something to help bring safety and relief to those wandering few but not tonight. Tonight I had to preserve the myth of Santa Claus for two small boys living in an undead world.

  It took an hour for me to make it to the Wal-Mart in St. Anthony, a trip that would have normally taken about ten minutes. I pulled the bike right up the by the entrance.

  The parking lot was oddly deserted, just a handful of cars scattered around the vast empty space. The entryway was a two sided box-shaped protrusion from the front of the store. Customers could enter double automatic doors on either the right or left side.

  Both entries were blocked by large black cargo vans with heavy tinted windows. I peeked around the rear of the van on the left side to find the glass walls intact, the same proved true for the right. The building contained no zombies. I couldn’t sense any in the surrounding area either, just a few pulses of blue light a few blocks north of my position.

  It seemed impossible that a big box store like this could have remained untouched after so many months. I could buy that it could have survived zombie destruction. It could hav
e been closed or something. But looters would have surely hit the store by now. It would have contained the mother lode of supplies.

  I checked the interior of the store again with my mind, this time checking to see if I could sense healthy people like I had when I found Mark. I couldn’t sense anything. This meant it was empty or my power only worked when there were zombies present with their blue energy.

  The van doors were all locked and I got a weird feeling someone was watching me from inside. I hurried back to the bike and fired it up. As I drove slowly through the parking lot I considered trying to hit a different store but it was too cold for another long ride and for all I knew it could be the same situation wherever I went.

  I pretended like I was headed back out to the street to leave until I was out of the line of sight of the vans before I turned the headlight off and doubled back to cruise slowly around the rear of the store. I decided driving a big motorcycle in almost complete darkness was not my favorite.

  A large construction dumpster was resting in the rear parking lot behind the store. I drove the bike behind it and killed the engine. I didn’t want to leave it out in the open for someone to sabotage and leave me stranded.

  The helmet and my stocking cap were frozen together. I peeled them apart and carefully rested the helmet on the handle bar. The air smelled faintly of stale smoke and barbeque but I decided to ignore it. I wanted to be done with unpleasant discoveries for a while.

  From the cover of the dumpster, I peered into the dark looking for a better view of the back of the store. Each door was blocked off by black vans just like the front had been. The loading dock garage doors were blocked by three large semi-trailers, I was getting that itchy feeling that I should just leave but it was getting late, Christmas morning was only a few short hours away. It was a fool’s errand I was running but it had become very important to me.

  That smell again, sharp and acrid in my nose, it had to be coming from the dumpster. Hell with it, I thought to myself as I stepped up onto one of the safety bars and peered inside with my flashlight.