“I’m sure they’re fine. Maybe it hasn’t spread that far.”
“I thought you were from Kansas. Aren’t they close?”
“I grew up here,” she confirmed. “But they retired to Florida a few years ago. They…” They wanted a fresh start. They wanted to be somewhere without memories of their dead son. They wanted a place where they didn’t have to see Alice and how much she looked like Timothy. “…wanted a nice, quiet place to get old.”
“That’s a weird thing to say.”
“They’re weird people. Did you find anything good?” She turned back to Mark and raised an eyebrow, silently letting him know the discussion was over. There would be no more talk of her parents or brother. She wasn’t interested in exploring her childhood or talking about how fucked up she was inside now.
No, she just wanted to get supplies and get out: out of Holbrook, maybe even out of Kansas.
She wanted to escape this world she was trapped in.
She wanted out.
“Nothing yet,” Mark said. He maintained eye contact. He knew what she was doing, but he was going to let her get away with it for now.
Good.
She appreciated that.
“Let’s get looking,” she said. “I want to get out of here as soon as possible. It kind of sucks here, yeah?”
“Which part? The zombies or the fact that the family could come home at any time?”
“All of it.”
“Check the bathrooms,” he said. “Look for anything that might be useful. I’ll take the bedroom.”
“Why are you taking the bedroom?”
“Because I’ve got a feeling the motherfucker who lived here has a gun,” he jerked his head toward one of the pictures, one Alice hadn’t noticed. The dad, or at least, the man she assumed was the dad, was holding a rifle in one hand and his other was firmly on the head of a dead deer.
Alice thought she might be sick, but she nodded. She turned back to the end of the hall where she had seen a large bathroom. She opened the door and walked inside. The room was a mess. It was lived in. It was used. She pushed past the dirty laundry on the floor and the damp towels half-heartedly shoved on the rack.
The medicine cabinet was full of half-empty bottles of pills. She read a few of the labels, but they were things she’d never heard of. Alice put them in her bag. It was better to have them and not need them, right? She noticed one bottle of prescription painkillers and she smiled as she shoved those in the little grocery tote.
Those might come in handy even if they didn’t get sick or injured.
“Let’s go,” Mark peeked his head in the door.
“Did you find it?”
He held up the rifle from the picture.
“Still in good condition,” he said. “Looks like it was cleaned recently, too.”
“Ammo?” She asked.
“Got it,” he jerked his head to his bag and she followed him from the bathroom. She was glad they’d gotten showers that morning, glad they didn’t smell like day-old bodies. Being away from home, being without a home to return to at all, was weird enough. Being dirty made it worse.
“Lots of food downstairs, guys,” Kyle said, appearing at the top of the stairs. “Do you want a snack before we go?”
Alice didn’t hesitate. Her stomach grumbled loudly and she hurried downstairs, leaving the guys to catch up. She scurried into the kitchen and tore open a package of beef jerky and started eating. She was starving. Alice never missed meals. This was why she was so curvy and all of her friends were so thin, she knew. They could go days without eating, but she could barely go a few hours before the tell-tale feelings of hunger began to stir inside her.
“Slow down there, slick,” Mark said with a chuckle when he saw her.
“I’m hungry,” she said.
“We all are.” He reached for a beef jerky stick and started eating. They were silent as they filled their bellies with cereal, meat, and soda.
Then they left the house.
They returned to their main house and dropped off their finds, then went through two more houses on the street. By the time they returned from the last house, darkness had fallen, and it was time for bed.
“Let’s leave at dawn,” Mark said.
“If what we know from movies is correct,” Kyle added, “then they’ll be more active at night, which makes dawn the safest time to leave.”
Alice didn’t care when they left. She went upstairs, kicked off her clothes, and climbed into bed. She didn’t care that the guys were there. They’d see her naked soon enough, living in the wilderness together. It might as well be today. That way, she could at least get a decent night’s sleep.
She wasn’t one for pajamas or clothes in bed. Alice slept best in the nude, and that was how she’d crash tonight.
Her eyes closed as soon as she hit the pillow on the top bunk.
She didn’t hear the guys whispering late into the night.
She didn’t hear their plans for the next day.
She didn’t hear Mark worry that she was going to have a hard time being a lone female in the apocalypse.
And she didn’t hear him carefully tuck her blanket around her as she slept.
Chapter 12
It was time to leave the little cul-de-sac house.
“Goodbye, house,” Alice whispered. Kyle gave her a weird look and she just shrugged. “I’m quirky,” she said, as if that explained everything.
To Kyle, though, it kind of did explain everything. Alice really was quirky and fun and interesting. He’d known her for awhile and liked her well enough, but seeing her in this situation gave him a new respect for her. She didn’t waste time trying to impress people. Perhaps that was what made her the most interesting of all.
If Alice didn’t like something or someone, she would just tell them. She would just say it right out. There was no guesswork with her, which was unusual.
Kyle had sisters.
Plenty of them.
They had never been forthcoming with their feelings the way Alice was. No, his sisters needed to be charmed, tricked into giving up their secrets. Alice didn’t have anything to hide, didn’t have anything to hold her back.
If you pissed her off, she would say it.
“I’m ready to get out of here,” Mark said.
“Bikes are ready,” Kyle jerked his head toward the three bikes in the garage. They were lucky that they didn’t need to even leave the street yesterday. They’d found almost everything they needed. They’d even found a spare rescue inhaler for Kyle, which was what they really wanted.
He felt bad they had stayed an extra day in zombie world for him, but he felt a little safer having the extra puffer.
It was starting to get chilly outdoors and they each had a jacket on. It was amazing how many little things you could find when you pilfered through strangers’ houses. Kyle strapped a helmet on his head.
“Nerd,” Mark said.
“Safety first.”
Mark put a helmet on. Alice did, too. They didn’t have a map or GPS, but they had an idea of where they would go, of which direction they would aim for. They all hoped it worked. If they died trying to escape, Kyle would be pretty fucking sad about it. They needed to make it. They needed this fresh start.
“Follow me,” Mark said, and he opened the garage door. Kyle and Alice climbed on their bikes, but Mark didn’t come back in right away. “Are you fucking kidding me?” He muttered. “Go!”
He grabbed his bike then, climbed on it, and started to pedal. He couldn’t go too fast because he had one of the trailers attached to his bike. Alice had the other one they’d found. Kyle, with his asthma, didn’t have a trailer, but he had his backpack, and it weighed heavily on his back.
He didn’t ask questions, didn’t hesitate. He just bolted, following Mark.
“Damn!” Alice said as they emerged from the garage.
Damn indeed.
If they’d been lucky the last two days, their luck was drawing to a close
. It looked as though the Infected families had gained enough consciousness to return home, and that’s exactly what they were doing.
The cul-de-sac, with its single way out, had a dozen Infected. They were mulling about, looking around. They weren’t moving.
There were simply a lot of them.
One zombie was no big deal.
Two, that was fine.
A dozen, though?
It was a lot to deal with, a lot to face, and Kyle wondered if they’d be able to get around them. He could see Mark’s plan even without speaking. They were going to ride their bikes through the crowd. They were going to charge straight through and hope nothing lunged at them.
It was a stupid plan.
They couldn’t cut through yards: not with the attached trailers. The end of the road was literally the only way out of the cul-de-sac, and they had to try. They had come too far not to try. They could try this or they could ditch the bikes, ditch the supplies, and run on foot.
Kyle knew he’d never make it on foot.
The Infected were spread out enough that they could probably get through. The element of surprise was all they had going for them. The Infected hadn’t seemed to notice them heading toward the end of the road yet.
Kyle pedaled fast. Mark pedaled faster. Quickly, they darted down the road and began to weave their way through the undead. A couple of the Infected noticed them and began to snarl, began to move. One actually looked like it was going to run, but Kyle and Mark were too quick. They were too fast.
Kyle couldn’t believe it. They were actually going to make it through. The undead had come to Holbrook, but they weren’t going to kill Kyle and his friends. They weren’t going to get them. Not today. Not ever.
“Let’s go!” Mark called, and he rounded the corner at the end of the cul-de-sac, turning out of the tiny street. Kyle started to follow, but just as he neared the edge of the road, he realized Alice wasn’t beside him anymore.
The bike trailer she was pulling was heavy. She couldn’t pedal too fast or the whole thing would flip and knock her off her bike. If she flipped, she’d lose everything they had gathered the day before. All of their supplies would be loose in the streets.
Kyle turned back to see Alice. She was breathing heavily, gripping her handlebars like there was nothing else in the world that could save her. She had to pedal. She had to move faster. Kyle saw the undead. While he and Mark had barely made their way through the gathered Infected, he realized they had drawn a lot of attention to their little group, and the zombies were getting closer together.
And closer to Alice.
“Hurry!” He cried, but it was too late. Alice looked up and just as her eyes met Kyle’s, an Infected threw its body onto the bike trailer, capsizing her.
The trailer flipped over, and so did the bike, bringing Alice with it.
Alice had fallen in the middle of the road and the zombies were there, reaching for her, moving toward her. She needed to get up and run, but her leg was caught beneath her bike. Alice tried helplessly to wiggle free, but it was too late. There was no hope. The zombies reached for her and she screamed.
Find out what happens next in Just Another Day in the Zombie Apocalypse: Episode 2.
Author
L.C. Mortimer loves zombies almost as much as she loves coffee. When she's not on a caffeine-induced writing spree, she can be found stocking up on canned goods for the apocalypse. Mortimer loves reading, playing zombie video games (7 Days to Die is currently her favorite), and spending time with her partner-in-crime: her husband of 11 years.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Author
Just Another Day in the Zombie Apocalypse (Episode 1) Page 7