Her lips pressed into a grim line, and she was clearly fighting back tears of her own. “You’re gonna kill them, aren’t you?” she said.
My hands shook as I contemplated the harsh reality. “I have to, Sammy. It’s…the only way.”
“I loved them,” she said quietly. “Jan and Mandy did everything to help me. Tina and Mike always came to check on me. Marky, Greg, and Ned went with me on supply runs, and they always had my back. Gina…well, they all meant everything to me.”
“I know,” I said softly. “Don’t worry. I’ll take care of this.”
“They wouldn’t wanna be left that way. I sure wouldn’t want to be a blue-haired freak, always trying to eat people.” She shuddered and pointed her gun toward the door. “Open it, Val. I’m not leaving you alone to do this.”
“You don’t have to do this,” I said. “Killing your dead friends isn’t fun. Trust me on that.”
“You act like this is my first time,” she said as tears poured down her face. “I’m no rookie, not just some naïve teenager who doesn’t know how the world works nowadays. I’ve…seen too much.”
I sobbed when I realized she was right. She was just a teenager, and I hated that she had to be so jaded, that she’d had to experience terminating anyone. This world is so messed up, I thought, seething.
Sammy wiped her eyes and sniffled. “Just please open the door.”
I felt a tear slip down my cheek, knowing that what I was about to do was going to be one of the hardest things I’d ever done. I hated that there hadn’t been a better outcome. We’d spent the last twelve months surviving, united as friends. I wanted to tell Sammy that everything was going to be okay, but I couldn’t guarantee that. All I knew was what I had to do: kill the special people in my life who had cared about and loved me. The worst part was that I hadn’t even had the chance to say goodbye.
I opened the door and kept my distance. I pointed my gun and waited for the first zombified person to walk out. My heart sank when I saw who it was. “Oh, Jack, I’m so sorry,” I said.
His head was tilted at an odd angle, and he just groaned at us as he stumbled out the door.
My hands wavered for a moment before I took aim between his eyes and pulled the trigger. He slumped to the left as he fell, and more tears pooled in the corners of my eyes.
A woman with blonde hair and white eyes shuffled toward us next, and I realized it was my dear friend, Renee. Sammy aimed and fired, hitting her in the neck and causing black blood to spurt out. I walked closer, pointed my rifle, and shot my friend in the head as sadness washed over me like a hurricane.
Everything was a blur as we shot one infected friend after another. It felt robotic, as if I wasn’t really there.
When I finally headed outside, Sammy was pouring gasoline around the house.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“You know I’m a firebug,” she whispered. “You arrested me once for arson.”
My eyes narrowed. “Sammy, we can bury them.”
She shook her head. “Nope. There’s no time. Don’t you hear that?” she said, pointing around in every direction, where several moans were coming from. “They’re coming, Val. We have to cremate our friends.”
Before I could stop her, she threw the match, and the house instantly burst into all-consuming flames. She was right: It would take far too long to dig respectable graves for our friends, and there was a large mob of zombies heading our way, probably summoned there from my angry wails earlier. Tears rolled down my face as I said a quick prayer for my friends. I watched the flames licking at the siding and wondered again why fate was so cruel.
Before we knew it, a zombie with crazy hair, dressed in a dirty, blue short romper stumbled in Sammy’s direction.
She aimed and fired, then looked at me. “We gotta go!”
Snapping back into survival mode, I fired off four more shots, nailing the quartet that was lingering by our car. Zombies were coming from everywhere, like cockroaches. With a steady squeeze, I pulled the trigger and nailed one that had a bright red, closed umbrella jutting out of the side of its rotting head, as if it had battled Mary Poppins and lost.
The corpses were closing in on us fast. I fired off a few more blasts, nailing every zombie that dared to stumble into my path. When a zombie in a black t-shirt reached for me with twisted, mangled hands, I sent a bullet deep into its brain. Another one reached from my left, the bone in its arm protruding out of its dirty winter coat. It was also wearing black boots, and I found that quite odd in September. Musta been around a while, I thought, then shot it and jumped into the car.
I started the engine and sped to my house a few miles away. Sammy knew how upset I was, and she wasn’t faring any better. I just needed some time to process everything and clear my head. What could I have done to prevent this horrible outcome? I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind. I thought about my friends who had died too soon; their zombie forms would be seared into my mind forever. They’d be forever in my hearts and minds.
“What happened to them?” Sammy asked.
“It could’ve been anything. We might never know.”
“So it’s just us now, huh?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Life sucks!” she said as tears rolled down her face. “Promise me you’ll never leave me.”
I wasn’t sure I could make such a promise, so I remained silent.
“Please, Val,” she begged. “Please!”
“I’m here, Sammy…always.”
I stopped the car and peered out. My neighbors had put up a ten-foot, chain-link fence topped with razor wire, and it encompassed two full blocks. Since it appeared to be safe, I hurried out and unlocked the gates, then opened them wide. We’d had security who took turns taking shifts, but most of them had fled or were now dead. Once my car was through, I walked back out and shut the gates, locking them tight.
I parked on the street in front of my house. Six months earlier, I’d asked Jack to use his tow truck to maneuver several cars from his scrap yard in front of my place, a fantastic barricade. It didn’t keep the zombies out entirely, but it sure slowed them down. They also had to get past the deep ditch we’d dug around the house, a makeshift moat. I had zombie traps placed all around and inside my house, and I’d mounted every weapon imaginable on my walls, within easy reach.
“Hey! Is that Barb’s car?” Sammy asked.
I glanced behind me. “She’s probably worried sick about me and you.”
She peered around. “So…where is she?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t like this,” Sammy said.
“I don’t see any zombies,” I whispered, glancing around. “Maybe she left her car here for me to use until I get a new one. She knew how much I hated relying on Jack to drive me around,” I said, hopping over a beat-up Beetle to get into my yard.
I put down the mini-drawbridge the men had built for me and glanced down to the bottom of the trench, where several sharp spikes were sticking up to slice and dice any unwanted visitors of the clumsy, cannibalistic type. Just looking at it made me feel safer. As we walked across the wooden bridge, I noticed an impaled zombie, thrashing around and clicking its teeth.
“Looks like somebody either turned or a zombie broke through the perimeter,” Sammy said.
I gasped. “Oh my gosh! That’s Mrs. Johnson, from three doors down,” I breathed out. “I can’t believe it. She was the nicest lady.”
Sammy whipped out her gun and shot her. The zombie’s eyes fluttered shut, and black blood oozed out. I swallowed hard, and Sammy touched my arm. “I didn’t want you to have to do it,” she said.
I smiled at her, realizing that she’d grown up so fast in the last year, albeit for all the wrong reasons. “Thanks. It would’ve been so hard,” I said.
I unlocked the door, and we walked inside. I then slammed the door shut, and the ten deadbolts clanked as I securely locked us in. I knew we’d have to give Mrs. Johnson a proper burial w
hen the time was right. Death had become so commonplace, and I hated that.
I maneuvered through the web of ropes stretched from one wall to the next, a trap meant to slow zombies down if they got in while I was sleeping. If they got tangled up, it would give me plenty of time to rush down and blow them away.
“It’s so dark in here,” Sammy complained.
“Sorry,” I said, turning on a lantern. There wasn’t much light in the place because my windows were all boarded up and secured with concrete. I didn’t enjoy living in a small fortress, but I had little choice.
When the lantern illuminated the place a little, Sammy’s eyes lit up at all the party decorations I’d put up for her. Shiny, plastic swirls and colorful balloons hung from the ceiling and walls. I had really gone all out for her—the best I could in an apocalypse—because I really wanted to do something special for her.
“You did all this for me?” she asked, her voice trembling.
I smiled. “Well, you’re the birthday girl, aren’t you? Happy birthday, Sammy.”
“Wow. I’ve never had a birthday party before, Val. My parents just always handed me a card with some cash in it.” A tear slipped down her face. “Nobody has ever done anything like this for me, not ever.”
I embraced her in a tight hug, and I could feel that she was still shaken up. It was all so hard on her. She was just as close to my friends as I had been. She hung out with us all the time and went on supply runs with us. They had invited her to move in countless times, but she enjoyed having her own space. She wouldn’t even move in with me, no matter how many times I begged.
“This is so beautiful,” she said, spinning in a slow circle, taking it all in, “but it’s such a sad day for it. I guess I’m supposed to be happy that I’m alive and survived another birthday, but I just feel…well, I don’t feel right celebrating when they—”
“Sammy, you can be sad for them, but you still have a lot to celebrate. For one thing, you’re still living, here with me.”
“But why, Val? How does nature decide who to weed out and who to save?”
“Who are we to question why one person lives over another? It’s just the way life works.”
I said that to calm her down, but also because I didn’t have the answers she desperately wanted to know. My friends, good people, had been taken from me in the blink of an eye. Until then, I’d taken life for granted, forgotten how precious it was. Life continued delivering blow after blow, until I could hardly breathe. In fact, I had no idea how I was even still standing. I was in a fog, numb, as if my heart had been frozen. Most of all, I hated not having any control over the sudden changes in my life. If I had learned anything in all that chaos, it was that life was unpredictable and could change in a matter of hours.
When I glanced down, I saw Barb’s purse, the one she was seldom without because she carried her handgun in it. I didn’t see Barb anywhere, and when I called for her, but she didn’t answer.
“How’d she get in?” Sammy asked. “The emergency entrance upstairs?”
“Yeah. That woulda been the only way.”
“Where’re the dogs?”
“I dunno,” I said, glancing around. I hadn’t even noticed that my canine guards hadn’t come out to greet me. I was so overwhelmed with grief and so busy trying to calm down from all that we’d been through that I simply couldn’t think straight. “Charlie, Lucy, Rocky, Molly, Rusty! C’mon, babies! C’mere!” I called. When they didn’t respond, I tried whistling. “Where are they?” I said. “They always come—always.” Panic struck me when I called for them again and still got no response.
Suddenly, a crash echoed from the kitchen.
“What was that?” I said, cocking my head.
Chapter 8
With my gun drawn, I slowly started to walk toward the kitchen.
Crash!
My heart thrummed in my chest when I heard the noise again, and I took small steps, fearing what I might find.
Something growled, and it didn’t sound like any of my pets.
I took a trembling breath when a slurping sound filled the air. “Barb?” I said.
A figure stood, and as it slowly turned around, I gasped at what used to be my friend. It held intestines in its cold, dead hands and looked at me blankly.
“Oh no,” I whispered, horrified. I could only surmise that Barb had come over to tell me what was happening with the others, and she had turned while she was waiting for me to get back. She must have died here, I thought, my mind scrambled and frantic, and she’s eating my poor dogs!
Clearly, she’d been bitten, because there were teeth marks lining her arm and neck. She looked at me and snarled.
“No!” I shouted, unable to even breathe. I took perfect aim and pulled the trigger, dropping her to the ground. In fury, I picked up a glass vase and threw it. I’d lost all my friends in one horrible day, human and canine alike. I touched Barb’s arm and said a little prayer for her as tears poured down my face. I ripped the tablecloth off and overturned the table as anger surged through me. Could this day get any worse?
Sammy took the tablecloth from my trembling hand and laid it over Barb’s face as she wept. “I can’t stand seeing her that way.”
“We need to bury her,” I softly said.
“I only cremated the others because there were so many of them. It wasn’t safe to stick around long enough to dig that many holes. It would’ve attracted too much attention.”
“I know,” I whispered as shock overwhelmed me.
Sammy and I dragged Barb’s lifeless body outside, followed by my half-devoured dogs. I wept as the memories flooded through my mind. Barb had been one of my best friends since high school, and we’d made all sorts of plans for a future that would now never come. She was a beautiful person and always believed we could conquer the virus.
I knew going outside was dangerous, but I no longer cared. I was tired of zombies dictating how I lived my life. Sammy and I each grabbed a shovel and started digging graves for Barb, Mrs. Johnson, and the dogs. After we covered the bodies, we held a little memorial service. Sammy wept in my arms, and we were both shaken to our very core. Words just tumbled out of my mouth, in no particular order for a while. I knew I needed to be strong for Sammy, but I was quickly spiraling out of control.
“I’ve lost everything,” I said, “my family, my friends, and even my dogs. I’ve lost everything I cared about, even my job. Those things out there have taken my whole world from me. I have nothing left,” I said, with tears streaming down my face.
“You have me,” Sammy said, “and I’ll be here for you.”
I looked at her and smiled. “You’re right,” I said. “We still have each other.”
I hugged her, then checked and secured the house one more time before I walked off for a little bit of much-needed alone time. I thought about everything, from my birth, to my adoption, to my friends and family, to the world going haywire. I cried, cursed, yelled, and even punched a wall. I just needed to be alone with my thoughts. I didn’t know whether to stay or go. There was nobody to confide in anymore.
Sammy knew I needed my space and didn’t come upstairs, and I was thankful for that, but after a while, she shouted, “Val! I see a zombie.”
I grabbed my rifle and peered out the bedroom window. There were more zombies than usual, but it was nothing I couldn’t take care of.
Sammy stepped into my room and gazed into my eyes. “Val, we can’t stay here. This place isn’t safe anymore.”
“I can go out there and take out any loners.”
“They aren’t loners. Their food supply is gone. They’re coming for us, for anybody with a beating heart.”
“It’s more dead neighbors,” I said. “I can take care of them. I’ve been killing zombies and protecting this neighborhood for over a year.”
“Wow. I guess it’s not such a beautiful day in the neighborhood anymore,” she said. “You’re the last man…er, uh…woman standing. I kinda know what that feels like, bu
t with that whole gang thing going on…well, I guess I didn’t get the chance to tell you about my friends—Becca, Sonya, Mark, Annie, and Chris.”
“What about them?”
“They’re all dead. Zombies got ‘em yesterday.”
“I’m so sorry, Sammy,” I said.
“That gang won’t last long. I’ve seen triple the amount of zombies hanging around, especially at night. It was hard to sleep with them moaning and hissing outside my window.”
“I’m so glad we got you out of there, especially now that things are…escalating.”
“We’re losing the battle,” she said. “I’m not gonna give up or anything, but we have to find somewhere safe to live, like on some mountaintop or in freezing Alaska or in the middle of a desert.”
“We have to have access to food and water,” I said.
Her eyes widened as fear spread across her face. “I don’t know where we’re supposed to go, Val, but we’ve gotta leave town as fast as we can. Everybody is dying. If we stay here, we’ll die too.”
“I know. It’s getting bad. We’ve lost so many people. The zombie population is increasing every day…and they’re hungry. I think I know a place we can go, where we’ll be safe.”
Her eyes lit up. “Where? And do they accept blue-haired chicks?”
“Of course. As long as we aren’t zombies, we’ll fit right in.”
She wiped her tears. “So where is this utopia, Val, this alleged safe haven?”
“Before we lost all communications, I’d been talking to my biological mother and family. When things got bad, I had one last phone call with my grandmother. She told me to come to where she lives, in Ohio, on an island. She said my family was meeting there and that I can stay with them and be safe until this is all over.”
“An island in Ohio?”
“Yup, Kelly’s Island, up on Lake Erie.”
“How far is it from here?”
“Eight hours by car. All we have to do is drive through Pennsylvania.”
“I’m up for a road trip if you are, but what about gas?”
“We have enough to get started, and we can hunt for more along the way. Heck, we’ll siphon gas from abandoned cars if we have to.”
Val: Prequel to The Zombie Chronicles Page 6