Zombies! A Love Story

by Maggie Shayne

  I got that. I actually felt a little sorry for the guy. He didn’t know it yet, but he was going to be dead in another forty-five minutes or so.

  “So that was it? They were all made into chips and they were all released into this town?”

  “Yes. As far as the first batch we grew goes, yes. Absolutely.” Reynolds rubbed his head. “God, I feel odd.”

  I looked at Chuck. He looked at me. Then he crouched low and helped Reynolds get upright again. “The first batch?” He asked.

  Nodding, the man said, “We planted another. A hundred and forty acre plot of them, on the land we leased outside of town.”

  “The Hastings place,” I said softly. “How do you grow potatoes in the desert?”

  “That’s the beauty of them,” he said. “They grow in any soil, on very little water. We irrigate from a tank of nutrient enriched water and they grow like–God, what is wrong with my head?” He pressed his palm to his forehead and squeezed his eyes shut.

  I took Chuck by the arm and led him a few steps away. “Ok, he’s gonna turn. You know that, right?”

  He nodded. “Chief said it took the other guy about an hour. It was the same with Sally.” He sighed. “We’ve got to tell him. And then we’ve got to get him away from his wife and kid so we can...put him down. When it happens.”

  “I agree. We also have to contain this thing, keep it from spreading. I think we do that by destroying every one of these...creatures. All of them. Then we destroy every trace of those chips and the new crop of potatoes as well.”

  “There should’ve been help here by now,” Chuck looked across the roof toward where Chief Mallory was helping my mom entertain the little boy. The two teenagers were sitting against a smokestack, knees drawn up, heads down.

  “If it’s not here by now, I don’t think it’s coming.”

  I turned toward the front edge of the building, staring down at my beloved little town. The creeps were still down there. Everywhere. Wandering and mindless, bumping into each other and walking on, but focused on us, up on the roof. They kept walking into the sides of the building, and pawing at it, moving on and trying again in another spot. I scanned the bank beneath us, the general store across the street, the pharmacy on its right and the gas station on its left. Everything looked as if it had stopped in the middle of an ordinary morning. The store’s closed sign had been flipped to open, and the lights inside were on. The tanker truck sat beside the gas station with its hose attached and lying on the ground, the morning delivery interrupted before it could begin.

  I stared at that truck for a long moment. And then I looked at it and blinked. “I think I have a plan.”

  Chapter Nine

  * * *

  CHUCK GOT REYNOLDS to sit down, and made the rest of us give them some space. I had one hand on my gun the whole time, and I didn’t take my eyes off the two of them as they crouched low and Chuck broke the news to the man. That he’d been bitten. That he would now change. That he had about a half hour left. I could almost tell what he was saying just by the series of emotions that crossed the older man’s face. Horror, then fear, then disbelief, and finally, devastated acceptance.

  When he finished, Reynolds gathered his wife and son into his arms, and the rest of us stood as far from them as we could. “He’s coming with us,” Chuck said softly.

  “Going with you where?” Mom asked.

  I nodded at the truck across the street. “We’re going to make our way across the street and take that truck. It’s full of gasoline, Mom.”

  “We’ll make a lot of noise, get them to follow us,” Chuck went on. “All of them. Then we’re going to douse the rest of those mutant potatoes in gasoline and torch the field.”

  “Right, hopefully, creeps and all.”

  “And why is he going with you?” Chief Mallory asked, his eyes going to Reynolds, who was saying goodbye to his family.

  “He was bitten, Chief Mallory,” I said softly. “He’s going to turn. We don’t want him here with his little boy when that happens.”

  Mom lowered her head, bit her lip. “I don’t particularly want him in the cab of a truck with my little girl when that happens either,” she said.

  “I promise, I won’t let anything happen to Suzy,” Chuck told her.

  I lifted my brows and looked at him. “Don’t let this new macho man thing go to your head, Chuck. I can still take pretty good care of myself.”

  “Never doubted it.” He held my eyes. I held his back. There was something happening between us in the middle of this mess. Something a lot bigger than what we’d had before. And I wanted to know what it was, and resented the undead for being a distraction from that.

  “Let’s both stay alive, okay?” I said at length.

  “Yeah, let’s.”

  Mom’s eyes were a little too knowing. She said, “I had a break-in last year. An armed young man, strung out on drugs. He got lost and then ran out of gas. Came in the back door, waving a gun around my kitchen in the middle of the night. I blinked, realized she was finally telling me what I’d been wanting to know–what had changed her.

  “Your mother was brilliant,” the chief said. “Calmed the kid down, fed him, convinced him she was on his side, and managed to dial my home number on her cell phone, instead of 911, all without him knowing. She left the phone on so I could hear what was happening. Dropped things into the conversation that tipped me off that she was in trouble.”

  “So you went over,” I said softly.

  Chief Mallory nodded. “Parked in front of a neighbor’s, and sneaked in the back door, gun drawn. Took the kid into custody without a fight,” Chief Mallory explained. “It was only the next day that I learned the car he’d been driving was stolen, the couple who owned it had been found dead in their home.” He shook his head. “Your mother’s courage and level-headedness saved her life that night.”

  I looked at my mother and felt like I was seeing her for the first time.

  “I figured I didn’t have to be afraid of living alone anymore. I’d faced what could’ve been my end, and come out okay. John helped me get a permit to own a weapon, and he taught me how to use it. I didn’t ever want to feel vulnerable or afraid in my own home again.”

  “And your mother and I have been seeing a lot of each other ever since,” Chief Mallory went on.

  Mom slid into the curve of his big arm. “So now you know.”

  “Yeah. Now I know.” I sighed, hugged my mother. “You shouldn’t have kept that from me.”

  “If I’d told you, you’d have felt like you had to come home right then. What you’re doing, what you’ve been learning, it’s worthwhile, Suzy, and it’s important.” She looked across at the zombies on the other roof. “More important than I ever knew.”

  Chapter Ten

  * * *

  MOM AND CHIEF Mallory took turns shooting at the trash cans in the alley below, knocking them into each other and creating as much noise as possible, while trying to conserve their remaining ammunition. I hated leaving them here, low on ammo, no food or water. But I didn’t see any better options.

  The distraction worked. Within a few minutes, all the dead started shuffling in that direction, trying to crowd into the alley between the bank and police station, milling around in front of it, while Chuck and I waited above the other alley, the one between the bank and the diner.

  As soon as it was clear, I hugged my mother, and then Chuck, Mr. Reynolds and I lowered our trusty fire hose, and quickly, silently, climbed down it. I mostly slid down it, but the two guys climbed. Reynolds was sweating a lot.

  After we hit the ground, Reynolds’ wife, Tam, hauled the hose back up. We ducked low and hurried out of the alley, then paused at the mouth to take a quick look up and down the street.

  Hell, they hadn’t all been distracted by the noise. Some were still out there, wandering like lost souls. Feet dragging, dead eyes, gray-blue skin. Dead. They were dead. Reynolds was looking up at his wife, saying goodbye without a word. Just a long, hear
tbroken gaze.

  I looked at Chuck. He held my eyes. “I love you, you know.” He said it real soft, so the dead wouldn’t hear.

  It hit me so hard I almost couldn’t breathe. When I could, I said, “You act like we’re not long for the world. We’re going to survive this, Chuck.”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “Well, get sure. I’d have brought Mom instead of you if I’d known you were going to be so negative.”

  He smiled a little. “You’re supposed to say you love me too.”

  “I’ll say it because I mean it. Not because I think it might be my last chance.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Trust me, it’ll mean more.”

  He sighed deeply, but I was already looking up and down the road. There were fifty feet or so between us and the nearest monster, and at least twice that distance from where we were to the gas truck. “They move slower. That’s our edge. We’re gonna have to run flat out, Chuck. You ready?”

  “Ready,” he said. Then he turned to Reynolds. “Bill. Time to go.”

  Nodding, Reynolds came to join us.

  “I just hope to God that truck’s unlocked.” I latched onto Chuck’s hand while he counted softly to three, and then exploded out of that alley like my ass was on fire.

  Of course our rapid motion caught their attention and they started toward us from both ends of Main Street. What I hadn’t expected were the handful milling around the gas station. They’d been behind the truck, so I hadn’t seen them there, but they heard our feet pounding the pavement, or felt the vibration or smelled us or something, because one of them came groaning and drooling around the front of the truck and had me skidding to a stop and damn near falling over backwards. I yanked out my gun, but Chuck pulled his rifle off his shoulder and popped it in the head. Two more were a few feet away.

  “We can make it!” He leaped up onto the truck’s gas-tank/step, yanked open its passenger side door, then reached down to pull me up and in. I clambered onto the passenger seat.

  The dead driver was behind the wheel, and he bared his teeth and came at me. I popped him between the eyes with the Glock, then scrambled over him to make room for Chuck to get up into the cab. Disgusting as that was, it was the only way. Chuck made it, slammed his door shut while I wrenched mine open to shove the twice dead trucker out. Then I closed it the door again, looking around frantically. “Where’s Reynolds? Where is he?” Chuck nodded at the big side view mirror, and I looked into it and saw the CEO climbing up the small ladder onto the top of the tanker.

  The undead were all over the side steps of the rig while Chuck and I swapped places. We paused in the middle. Chuck’s arms were around me, and he pulled me against him. “Victory kiss now?” He asked.

  “We haven’t won yet.” I tried to sound stern and not smile, but his flirting and his confidence boosted my mood. “Will you shut up and drive?”

  So he did.

  We had a herd of the mindless drones shuffling after us when he pulled out of the gas station, dragging the hose because there was no freaking way we could’ve wound it up without winding up as zombie snacks. We didn’t go fast. Speed wasn’t the point. We rolled the windows down, hooted and hollered out them to attract attention. We ran over several of them as Chuck plowed onward, slow and steady. He moved the truck just fast enough so they couldn’t keep climbing all over us, shifting, grinding gears in a way I figured would have the truck’s mostly dead driver wincing. We came across crowds of them blocking the road out of town, moving toward us and our noise, and mowed them down like a chicken harvesting machine in a PETA video. And you know I didn’t have a single twinge of regret. They were already dead. And besides, as we passed, the creeps were already dragging their broken ass bodies back up again, and stumbling after us.

  “Mom and the others could maybe make it out of town, with the freaks all following us,” I said, eyeing my cell phone and hoping the battery was holding out. I should’ve brought the charger when I ran from the house.

  “They’ll make it for sure once we wipe the bastards out.”

  “If we wipe the bastards out.”

  “Now who’s being negative?”

  I watched his face in profile as he drove. He was intense, more focused than I’d ever seen him. His shirt was torn jaggedly open. His face was smeared with blood and dirt. And whiskers, because he hadn’t shaved since yesterday morning. “I’ve never seen you like this, before, Chuck.”

  “I’ve never been like this before.”

  “You look like a freakin’ super hero.”

  “You’re lookin’ pretty Lara Croft yourself, Suzy.”

  I smiled, warming all over. “Really?”

  “Only hotter.”

  When I could pull my lips out of smiling long enough to speak again, I said, “I never should have left you alone out there at the party.”

  “You didn’t. You left me with our friends. And my sister.”

  “I know, but–”

  “If you’d stayed, you might’ve been....” He shuddered. “I don’t even want to think about that.”

  I reached out, put my hand on his bicep. “Damn, Chuck, when did you decide to get all ripped, anyway?” Glancing my way briefly, he said, “When we saw that Bruce Willis flick together, last time we were both home at the same time. You made some comment about how hot he was.” He shrugged. “I figured that was what you wanted, so–”

  “You think I’m that shallow? That you weren’t buff enough for me?” He shrugged.

  “I couldn’t figure out what else it could be. I could tell you were trying to put walls between us, Suz, and I couldn’t come up with any other answer. I’m smart. I’m a hard worker. I’m not bad looking.”

  “You were like Clark Kent. Now you’re like Superman. It was me, Chuck. I....” I shook my head hard. “This is no time for this conversation. Hang a right, the next mile and a half is all Hastings land.”

  “So what’s the plan?”

  “Find the potato fields. Drive up and down them with the taps on this baby opened up a little. Drizzle them liberally with gas from the tank. Hope to hell it’s full. And then–”

  “I’ve got a better idea. Look over there.”

  I looked where he was pointing. Saw the pipes lining the ground. “The irrigation system?” Then the lightbulb over my head snapped on and I nodded. “You’re brilliant, Chuck. Have I ever told you that?”

  “Many times. Tell me I’m hot again, I like it better.”

  “Later. During that victory kiss.”

  We drove around the field, following the closest set of pipes to their source, a large tank beside one of the outbuildings. The Hastings’ old house, a hundred yards away, looked peaceful, untouched by the horror plaguing our town.

  “We’re gonna have to get out of the truck, aren’t we?” I asked.

  He nodded. “It’s okay. I sped up when we got close. They move slow. We’ll be fine.” He opened his door, then looked back at me. “I’m not gonna let ‘em get you, Suz.”

  “I’m not gonna let ‘em get you, either, Chuck. Don’t you doubt it.”

  He grinned. I pulled out my gun and worked the action. Then I opened my door and jumped down, took a look around. No zombies in sight, except the almost-one climbing down off the truck’s giant tank. Mr. Reynolds was starting to look a little blue in the lips.

  “Mr. Reynolds?” I asked, gun aimed at the ground...for now.

  He nodded. “I’m still here.” He closed his eyes, opened them again. “Let’s get this done.”

  I looked down at the hose we’d been dragging behind us. It was in amazingly good shape. Banged and scuffed up but the metal ring on the end was still intact. I spotted a wheel on the truck that must be the valve as I walked around to join Chuck at the irrigation tank. Reynolds limped along to join us, but he was looking rough.

  Keeping my eye on him, and watching carefully for other creeps, I said, “So how do we do this?”

  “You’ll have to drain the irrigation tank
first,” Reynolds said. “Then refill it with gas. There’s the valve.” He pointed.

  Chuck moved fast, but quiet, and pulled the lever Reynolds had indicated. Water–no, not water. Sonatta’s nutrient solution, I reminded myself–started gushing from a spigot on the side. It made a river on the ground, and I hoped it wasn’t as artificial and toxic to the earth as everything else Sonatta made. “Can you turn the truck around so the hose can reach the tank?” Chuck asked.

  “I think so.” I went to the truck, noticed Reynolds picking up its long hose and getting it out of the way so I wouldn’t ruin it by running it over. It was a miracle we hadn’t already done so. After stalling the rig twice, I managed to turn the thing around back it up close to the tank. Chuck quickly slung the end of the hose over his shoulder, then mounted a ladder on the side of the large tank and climbed up. He dropped the end of the hose in, let it fall as far as it would go, and climbed back down.

  I looked back toward the road. The first couple of creeps were slogging along it now.

  “Is that tank about empty?”

  “Almost,” he said. He took the air rifle off, handed it to me. “Use this if they get close enough. It won’t attract the others as fast.”

  “Attracting the others is what we want.”

  “Yeah, but not for another five minutes.”

  So we sat there, watching the creeps shuffling closer, watching Reynolds inch closer to death and the horror that awaited him on the other side of it, and waiting for the damn irrigation tank to drain. I wondered if they still had souls, those creepers, or if they were just animated flesh without anything left inside of the person they’d once been. I didn’t suppose there was any way I’d ever know the answer to that.

  One of them got close enough to make me bring the rifle to my shoulder, aim and shoot. The framing nail hit him in the shoulder. He jerked sideways, but then kept on coming.