Vaccination - 01

by Phillip Tomasso

  I got into the SUV. I put it in drive.

  We had nearly a full tank of gas. The heat felt amazing. We left the ball field, and were back on track.

  “Notice we haven’t seen many zombies at all?” Josh sat forward, his head between Allison and me.

  “It’s got to be the rain,” I said.

  Josh’s head nodded up and down, like he was chewing that idea over inside his brain. “It’s possible. Be nice if they were just dying off.”

  “I agree.” Allison raised her hand, like she was in school.

  “It’s always possible.”

  “Just not probable,” Josh added.

  “I didn’t say that. But we don’t know. We don’t know much of anything.”

  “No,” Josh said. “We absolutely don’t. Except one thing.”

  “And what’s that?” I said.

  “Your kids. We need to find them.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  When we were walking, it seemed like not many cars clogged the street. Like the roads were navigable. Truth is, they were rough. We were able to snake this way and that. We made good time. I took it easy climbing curbs and driving on the sidewalk, and lawns.

  The whole time it rained, we did not see any zombies out and about. This gave me reason to smile. It meant my kids, as long as they were okay, would continue to be okay. Or should be, anyway.

  It’s what I allowed myself to believe anyway, was something to hang onto, at least.

  “This is the street,” I said. I wasn’t talking to anyone.

  No one answered. The houses were big. Donald made a lot of money. My ex must have been drawn to that. Because the squirrelly bastard was creepy looking. Creepy as hell.

  Allison had a hand on my forearm. Not sure how long it had been there. Was aware of it now, as she gave me a squeeze.

  I maneuvered a self-made path down the street, around several askew abandoned vehicles. I slowed when I came upon his house, saw his Lexus was in the driveway, and her BMW, too.

  I pulled in. Left the engine on.

  “I’m going in alone,” I said. “Josh, sit up front. I want you ready to get us the hell out of here.”

  “You’re not doing this alone,” Allison said. It was the way she said it. I sensed there was more to the words. Wasn’t just about me saving my kids. I think I knew what went through her head. Was hard even to let the thought flow. If my kids were dead, she didn’t want me to find them by myself.

  She really was an all right girlfriend. I needed to remember that. I needed to treat her better. Getting this far might not have been possible without her.

  I nodded. We got out of the SUV. Josh climbed into the front seat and Dave into the passenger side. My shovel felt heavy in my hands. I held a hand against my stomach. I thought I might get sick. I know I was breathing fast. Hard.

  The sky outside was black from both clouds and dusk.

  “You okay?”

  “Wonderful,” I said.

  I peeked into the tiny windows on the garage doors. My daughter had chopped Donald’s arm off inside there. I cupped my hands, but to no avail. I could not see a thing.

  Allison was looking all around, making sure nothing was sneaking up on us. I was thankful for the second set of eyes. “Nothing?”

  “Not a thing. Let’s go inside,” I said.

  The front porch held a swing suspended from chain links. Two wicker rocking chairs sat on either side of a small wicker end table. Fucking cute.

  The glass storm door was unlocked, but the main door was not.

  “Have a key?”

  I shook my head. I’m sure my ex had a spare hidden somewhere. Think the kids even told me about it. Might have said it was under one of the rocks along the landscape on the side of the house. Kicking in the door would feel so much more satisfying.

  I held the glass door open. “Hold this,” I said.

  Allison stood next to the door, keeping it open, and out of the way.

  I backed up a few steps, and then threw my shoulder into the door. Fucker was solid. I tried again. Realized it wasn’t the door that was going to give, but the frame. My third attempt shattered wood inside the house. The fourth time, we were in. The whole door collapsed into their foyer.

  It was my first time in the house. Was I bitter? Spiteful? Sure as shit. So when I came for the kids, I waited in the driveway. I honked my horn. I sat waiting for them, swearing and cursing the very foundation of the tiny mansion. Now that I was inside, I hated Donald more. The foyer was huge. Large tiles, antique artifacts on display, and a chandelier. A fucking chandelier.

  Money can buy you anything it wants. Even happiness. The old cliché was shit. He bought my family. He bought my happiness from me. Not stole it. Bought it. It made my ex a tramp in my eyes. Worthless. And he bought her with his money as well. Kids might not see it. Might not understand it. Eventually they would. They would know their mom actually walked away from her family because her husband -- me -- was tired, and worn out from working to support everyone. Fuck her.

  “Charlene? Cash?” Yeah. I yelled. “Charlene? Cash?”

  Something fell over somewhere upstairs. I looked at Allison. She’d heard it too. I took the stairs two at a time. My shovel out in front of me.

  The house was dark. I tried the light switch at the top of the stairs. Didn’t expect them to work. Not sure why. The lights came on, felt like sun rays exploding from the ceiling.

  Five rooms. Guessed three were bedrooms. One a bathroom. Maybe the fifth a linen closet. That door -- to what I guessed was a linen closet, was closed. The others, open.

  “You stay right here,” I said. She could defend the stairs. “Nothing comes up. Nothing goes down.”

  She nodded. “Got it.”

  The upstairs hallway was wide. Two doors on the right, two on the left. The one straight ahead was the bathroom. I saw the shower curtain.

  Way I saw it, three options existed. Two I could handle. It was either Donald or Julie in one of these rooms. I had no problem killing them. The third option was that it was my kids hiding. That one didn’t make sense, Charlene had said they’d fled.

  Confident, I strode toward the first door. There was an odor that assaulted my nostrils. Shit, and piss, and decay. My face crinkled, a failed attempt at protecting my nose. I looked back at Allison.

  “Wait there.” I just mouthed the words. The element of surprise, and all of that.

  I sucked in a deep breath and held it. Entering the room, I tried to be ready. The shovel, what I’ve come to think of as my wide-point bladed spear, set to kill, not stun.

  Julie was in the first bedroom. Must have been Charlene’s. Even with her back to me, I knew it was Julie. She sat on the bed. I saw the edge of a picture frame in her hand.

  “Julie?” I said. It might as well have been mouthed, too. I didn’t even hear me. Swallowing did nothing. My throat was that dry. I tried again; it was spat out in a loud whisper, “Julie!”

  Her head pivoted, first to the right -- to stare at the wall, then slowly toward me.

  I was at the foot of the bed. Don’t remember walking into the room.

  The picture in her hand was of our kids, and us. A 4th of July picnic, when the two were much younger. In matching U.S. flag shirts, we surrounded the base of a tree. Cash on my knee, Charlene standing between Julie and me. All smiles.

  Julie’s eyes were flat and lifeless now. A clump of hair was chunked out of her skull. A creamy white foam crested her lower lip and poured down her chin. Long sticky-looking strands of saliva stretched from her chin to her chest. She was not taking good care of herself at all.

  In a two-handed grip, I raised my shovel, ready to spike it down into her face.

  She didn’t move though. Didn’t come at me. She didn’t do a thing except look back down at the picture in the frame.

  I’d not of believed these things still possessed anything human in them before now. I thought they were gone. Whatever disease had entered them had destroyed their innards
and spoiled the soul.

  This time when I swallowed, I felt plenty slide down my throat. It was not what I’d expected.

  “Chase?”

  Was Allison really yelling for me?

  Julie’s head turned again, looking past me toward the open door. The picture frame dropped. A hollow sound of wood frame on hardwood floors, and the quick splack of glass spider-webbing all at once.

  In an instant, Julie was on all fours on the bed, and like a wolf, charging for the opened door.

  I had a mere second to register the attack about to happen, and swung downward with the shovel. The sheet-steel flattened her out on the mattress. When her arms rose, fists planted, she pushed herself up. I battered her with the shovel a second time.

  “Chase,” Allison said.

  “Kinda preoccupied,” I said.

  I spun the shovel 90 degrees, so that the spade was no longer flat when I swung downward at her head. It was perpendicular. Although it did not slice through the back of her neck, it did cut in deep. The blood did not spray, but oozed.

  I hacked at her neck repeatedly until the most of the spine was severed, and her head hung dangling by some skin and muscle off the side of the bed.

  She wasn’t dead. Her hand still moved. Her fingers rolled into fists, and unrolled, and rolled again. She was not a threat. She would not sneak up on anyone, if she’d ever managed to get off the mattress and out of the house. If anything, she was now dying. It might turn out to be a slow and painfully agonizing death, I couldn’t know for sure. I didn’t know the science behind their make-up. I left the bedroom and closed the door.

  “One down,” I said.

  Allison was not at the top of the stairs.

  I ran into the second bedroom. Cash’s. It was done up with Star Wars memorabilia. Action figures on shelving, and posters from all the movies. The bedspread and curtains depicted famous light saber battle scenes from the different movies. Hated to admit, but happy for my son. It was an awesome room. Beat the bunk beds I had in my apartment for him and his sister to share.

  I went to the next room. The master bedroom. “Allison?”

  I ignored the queen sized sleigh bed, the expensive dressers, and vanity. I hated the slippers by the bed, and the robes hanging on a coat rack in the corner. The wall mounted flat screen television was nice. I used the wood handle to smash the screen as I checked the closets and the bathroom.

  No one.

  In the hallway, I stuck my head into that bathroom -- and found nothing. “Allison?”

  I pulled open the hall closet, just to be sure. Neatly folded towels, extra sheets, and bathroom supplies filled the shelves.

  I ran down the hall, past the doors without pause, and down the stairs. At the bottom of the last step, I stopped, and listened.

  “Allison?” I whispered. “Alley?”

  A dish broke. No mistaking that sound. I went right, toward what I assumed to be the kitchen. Through the dining room, I saw a standoff. Allison held her hedge clippers closed, like a two-handled sword. She thrust the weapon out and at Donald, the one-handed asshole.

  I hate to say this is going to be fun, but I’d be lying otherwise.

  “Hey, Donny,” I said, “you go after my kids, huh? You try to eat my kids?”

  Donald turned his head. My voice was more interesting than the threat Allison posed.

  “That’s right,” I said. “Here I am. I’d love for you to come and get me.”

  He stepped around the kitchen island. I hated the hanging pots and pans. The whole kitchen decor sucked. The tiled back splash, and chrome appliances. The marble counter tops were horrendous. Might be expensive, might be color-schemed perfectly, but it look like shit to me. I’d take my kitchenette, with apartment provided stove and refrigerator any day.

  Donald lunged. Fast. Wasn’t expecting it. Thought he was a slower zombie. Figured it was how Charlene got the better of him and why Allison held him at bay. I was wrong.

  Like a linebacker, he hit me square in the chest. I reeled backward. Landed flat on the dining room table. A chair toppled over. I pulled my legs up and kicked out. My feet planted onto his shoulders and shoved him back into the kitchen, against the island.

  Allison used a frying pan. Swung like Babe Ruth. Had his head been a loose baseball, it would have sailed out of the park. Instead, the clunk to the skull knocked him to his right, into the side of the refrigerator.

  I got off the table, turned, and flipped it. I dropped my shovel, stood on the bottom side of the table, and pried free one of the legs.

  “Chase,” Allison said. A warning.

  I spun back to face my ex’s husband. He looked so old. Decrepit. This had nothing to do with his being infected and now a zombie. It was just who he was.

  “My turn,” I said.

  I swung. His skull caved as the table leg crashed into his ear. A tooth flew out of his mouth. I swung again. He dropped to his knees. The skull had cracked. I saw an overhang of white bone above the ear, and severed jawbone below. I swung again. He fell flat onto his face. I stood straddled on either side of his back, and swung, chopping downward. The leg splintered as it smashed time and again against the back of Donald’s skull.

  “Chase,” Allison said.

  I swung.

  “Chase.”

  I swung.

  “Chase, that’s enough. We have to go. We have to go now.”

  I stood over the corpse. I looked at my handiwork. Don’t let people lie to you. Revenge is satisfying. Fulfilling. It makes you feel better about yourself. Makes you feel like you came out on top. I took in a deep breath and sighed with pure gratification. “Let’s check the garage,” I said. “And the basement.”

  I knew my kids weren’t here. I had to check the rest of the house. I couldn’t just leave without verifying they weren’t hiding under the car, or in the dryer.

  “I got the basement,” Allison said.

  “I’ll check the garage.”

  We checked everywhere. Behind, under, and around things. It was like I thought. My kids were not here. There was no note, no . . .

  Phone charger.

  I ran back upstairs, and into my daughter’s room.

  Julie was still sprawled out face down on the bed. A foamy puddle of spittle soaked the throw carpet under her face. That unbreakable string of saliva connected the pool to her mouth.

  She moaned and groaned as I walked around the bed and snatched my daughter’s charger off the nightstand, and unplugged it from the wall. I lifted the broken frame off the floor and scattered the glass away with my fingers. I dug the actual photo free, looked at it for a long few seconds before folding and stuffing it into my pocket.

  I took the charger from Cash’s room, too.

  Downstairs, Allison stood by the door. “Everything okay?”

  I held up the charger. “It’s not. But this helps,” I said.

  It kind of did. I’d be able to charge my phone in the SUV. But if Charlene’s phone was dead, what good would it do me?

  Absolutely, none.

  A horn honked. Could have been the SUV. And again. Then a car alarm was activated. Whooping over and over.

  Chapter Thirty

  Allison and I charged out of Donald and Julie’s house. Out front, zombies surrounded the SUV. They pounded on the windows, climbed onto the hood. I counted ten. Eleven, one was behind the SUV, too.

  Nothing slow or sluggish about them.

  They wore t-shirts, basketball shorts, and high-tops. It was like our friends were being attacked by a high school basketball team. There was also a woman in rollers, and an unbelted baby blue bathrobe. The old man in briefs and nothing else, had more hair on his body than a Sasquatch.

  If Josh and Dave weren’t in trouble, if this wasn’t really happening, it would be hysterical. I’d be laughing. Only, it wasn’t really Josh and Dave in trouble. It was Allison and me. They were in a truck. Locked away safe. We were out in the open.

  I unclipped my radio. “Josh. Dave. Guys, get ou
t of here. We’ll go back in the house. Come back for us later,” I said. I put an arm in front of Allison, swept her behind me, back into the house.

  “Roger that.” Dave’s voice was crisp and clear over the radio.

  The horn honked and honked as Josh backed out of the driveway.

  At first I thought, what the hell is he doing? I realized then that he was drawing their attention. Keeping the zombies occupied. Saving Allison and me. Or, at the very least, buying time.

  I locked the door, watched the SUV pull away from the house slowly, the zombies still on the hood, following and banging on the windows.

  “What are we going to do?” Allison said.

  “Be ready. Check the back door. Saw it in the kitchen, goes out onto a deck. Make sure we can get out that way,” I said.

  Josh wasn’t leaving. He was bowling.

  Once down the street, and clear of the monsters, Josh turned around and sped toward the gathered herd. Two things happened. Several of the zombies were hit, maimed, and some killed. While one of them bounced into the air, over the hood and smashed through the SUV windshield.

  Josh braked hard. The SUV spun. Tire treads didn’t grab shit on the wet pavement. The zombie on the hood rolled onto the street and into a yard, inches from taking out a mailbox.

  “We can get out the back door. No zombies back there.” Allison was panting, like she’d run there and back.

  “They’ll all be out front with the noise Josh is making. Wait here. Watch them. They get into trouble--yell. I’ll be right back,” I said.

  I left Allison at the door, ran into the kitchen. And stared at the walls. I didn’t see a place for hanging car keys. I checked drawers and all around where the phone was mounted.

  Two cars in the driveway. Keys had to be somewhere. I knew when I got home, I walked in the apartment and dropped them onto the bookcase by the door. Along with my wallet and smokes.

  I went back to the front door. Right there. A small table in the corner.

  “What is it?” Allison said.

  “We’re going to be riding in style, I think,” I said. “With the windshield smashed on that thing, it won’t be any good to us.”