by Gibb, Lew
Rachel still couldn’t believe she was using the z-word. Less than twelve hours ago, she had been questioning Jerry’s sanity, and now she was in the middle of it. She sprinted across the patio on her toes and continued across a hundred feet of groomed lawn to the back gate. The yard was huge and held so many hiding places her eyes snapped from place to place while she ran. Even when she reached the gate leading to the alley, her head swiveled around. She was determined not to be caught again. She might not be so lucky the next time.
With a hand on the gate’s latch, Rachel took a deep breath. She inhaled woodsmoke, reminding her of the previous summer when smoke from Canadian wildfires had hazed the air and made the whole city smell like a campground. Now, the woodsmoke prickled her eyes and made her a little hungry. But there was also an acrid, throat-burning aftertaste. Chemicals. She could hear Jerry’s voice explaining how to tell a house fire from a distance. The smoke’s a much darker color, almost black, because of all the chemicals in the carpet and the paint and all the other plastic stuff in there.
Rachel’s head hadn’t stopped moving while she thought about all the crazy things she knew because of Jerry. The isolated lawn and pristine landscaping now felt like the eye of a hurricane. Once she left its protection, she would be entering the real apocalypse.
The mansion occupied prime real estate at the city’s western edge, very close to the city’s excellent mountain parks where Rachel and Jerry ran and hiked with the dogs at least two or three times a week. She would use the trail system, and one trail in particular, to skirt the city and then go cross-country all the way south to the town of Golden, directly west of Denver. From there, she would only have to travel six miles or so through a populated area to reach home. Much safer than the direct route, where she would be exposed to the dangers of zombies—and humans—the entire way. Although it would be about ten miles longer, it felt much safer.
Rachel took a deep breath and gripped her knife a little tighter, then thumbed the latch and pushed the gate open. She flinched at the slight scraping sound the latch made on the fencepost but kept moving, taking two steps into the alley before she crouched down and took a few deep breaths. The narrow, concrete-paved alley was clogged on both sides with dark green wheeled bins for garbage, recycling, and—of course, since it was Boulder—composting, but there were no crazed tweakers hiding behind the bins or hordes of ravenous flesh-eaters waiting for her arrival. A few cars protruded from too-small nineteenth-century garages that backed into the alley, but that was it. Rachel swiveled her head and “checked her six,” as Bob would say. The guy was such a military geek as well as being into all things manly that he was always throwing out jargon, like he had been in the military himself. Rachel kept going, edging along the alley with her back to the fence and leading with her knife.
After a block, she stopped and tried to control her breathing—in through the mouth and out through the nose the way Jerry coached people having panic attacks. She was not sure if she was dizzy from hyperventilating or from whipping her head around and trying to look everywhere at once. She definitely felt like she was wearing someone else skin, although the nausea had gotten better. When she had her breathing under control, she kept going. It was another three blocks to the edge of Chautauqua Park. From there, she would cross a couple hundred yards of grassland to the pine forest and the trail—hopefully zombie-free, since there didn’t seem to be much reason for them to be there—that would take her safely, she hoped, south and out of town.
Later, she would realize she had already allowed the empty alley to lull her into a false sense of security and let herself relax too much. Because of this, she spent too much time checking her six, and when she turned back around, a slim, dark-haired yoga-mom zombie was already around the corner at the end of the alley and closing the few feet between them fast. Rachel couldn’t do anything more than flinch before the woman slammed into her, jaws snapping shut just short of Rachel’s nose. They staggered backward, and Rachel tripped on something solid, maybe a raised section on the concrete. Whatever it was, she went down and landed on her back with a string of pearls dangling in her face and the zombie’s matching white teeth looming forward for another try at Rachel’s face.
Rachel did the only thing she could—with her head against the unyielding concrete, she turned her face and just avoided the bite. The clack of the woman’s teeth coming together next to her ear sounded like their old grill starter. Rachel remembered something Bob had said about what to do if a dog attacked you and there was no way to avoid it: “Just accept that you’re going to get bit. The thing you want to avoid is getting bit again or letting them rip you to shreds.” Jerry and his friend were a barrel of laughs sometimes.
Rachel hoped her motorcycle jacket’s Kevlar was better against teeth than it was against sharp knives and jammed her left forearm in the woman’s mouth in time to stop another lunge for her nose. The pain was excruciating. The woman’s jaw pulsed like she was chewing, but it didn’t feel like she was breaking the skin. The pain felt duller, like she’d slammed her arm in a car door.
Rachel pawed at her belt. She had dropped her chef’s knife, again, when she’d fallen. Finally, her hand found the utility knife where it had twisted behind her in the fall. She pulled it free and slammed it into the woman’s stomach without hesitation. Her fist pressed against the woman’s firm abdominal muscles, and she saw the red-rimmed eyes widen, but the jaw continued to pulse against her forearm. Rachel straightened her left arm and pushed the woman’s head back and to the side. The zombie held onto the front of Rachel’s jacket, but a little space opened up between them. She stabbed again, this time up under the arm, and felt the blade scrape off a rib before the knife went in up to the hilt. The pain of having her arm bludgeoned to death continued as Rachel squirmed to get out from under the gnawing zombie.
Paramedics dealt with a lot of suicide attempts, and it sometimes got frustrating for Jerry. “I don’t get how people are screwing this up when we have so much access to information,” Jerry had said after one particularly bad shift. “The carotid artery and jugular vein are just below the ear in the groove between the trachea and the lateral muscles, and they’re really big.” He was describing how he had transported a failed suicide attempt the previous night. The man’s shallow wrist cuts with a dull knife—of course, people really didn’t have any idea how to take care of their knives—had clotted before the blood loss had even affected his blood pressure. “If you really want to commit suicide with a knife, stab yourself in the femoral artery where your thigh meets your leg, or the jugular vein right there.” He had pointed to the spot that Rachel was looking at now on the zombie’s slender neck. The muscles bulged in time with the rhythmic squeezing of the jaws, and she could see the bulging blood vessel right in front. “The carotid artery is right there too. If you get both vessels, the blood will run out of your brain so fast you’ll pass out before you even know what’s happening. Then you’ll be dead.”
Rachel jerked the knife out of the woman’s side, gasping for breath. Her triceps burned from supporting the woman’s weight. She aimed and plunged the knife into the spot where she could just see the bulge of a blood vessel in the same place Jerry had indicated. Then she pulled the knife out while shoving hard with her forearm. It was impossible to avoid the surprising rope of warm blood that soaked her hand and settled across her own neck.
The woman’s gnawing grew weaker, and Rachel pushed with everything she had left. The jaws stopped working just before the woman flopped sideways and rolled onto her back. She was staring up at the sky, her blood-soaked pearls glistened in the morning sun like round rubies.
With a shudder and several more ragged breaths, Rachel scrambled to her knees. She grabbed the woman’s black sweater and scrubbed at the blood on her neck. The fabric was velvety-soft, probably cashmere, and absorbent, but it was impossible to get all the blood off. Her hand retained a pink tinge that wouldn’t go away. She was sure her neck was even worse.
; “Well, there’s one thing the movies got wrong about this one. I didn’t have to get her brain.”
Rachel wiped her knife on the woman’s pants and retrieved her chef’s knife, then pushed to her feet with her hands on her knees. She knelt and put two fingers on the undamaged side of the yoga-mom zombie’s neck. No pulse.
Rachel checked the area for anything she might have dropped and for more attacking zombies, then looked at the motionless zombie. What if they could come back to life? Tears sprung from her eyes.
She reversed her grip on the utility knife, held it in a tight fist, and poised it over the woman’s eye. “Fuck,” she hissed and plunged the knife into the zombie’s eye and through to the brain. She jerked it free and stood.
Rachel crossed the street to the next alley at a run, wanting to put as much distance as possible between herself and any zombies attracted to the noise of the scuffle. Once into the next alley, Rachel slowed to a fast walk, took a wide arc around each dumpster, and approached blind spots created by garages and fences with the chef’s knife leading the way. All the while, she wondered if the woman could still rise from the dead like in the movies.
The end of the neighborhood arrived sooner than she expected and without another zombie encounter. She had seen one likely zombie staring out the rear window of a house two blocks from the end of the city. He’d had a blank expression on his face until his eyes fell on Rachel. As soon as he saw her, his eyes fixed on her and didn’t deviate until she hurried out of sight. She heard the dull thuds of his fists and kept expecting to hear the crash of the glass window breaking at any second until she left the alley for the open grassland at the edge of Chautauqua.
Although she was exposed to anyone who might want to attack her, she felt comforted by the knowledge that she would have plenty of time to see them coming and either run or get ready to fight. She moved up the slope toward the trees at a moderate jog until she reached the pine forest at the base of the mountains that formed the stunning backdrop for the city. The flatirons, huge slabs of reddish rock pushed up millions of years ago by geologic activity, were illuminated by the early morning sun.
Rachel continued at a fast walk for a hundred yards or so, checking her six frequently, until she felt confident no one was watching her. Then she left the trail and walked until she found a spot between two house-sized boulders that was also sheltered by a copse of large pines. Looking back the way she had come, she could see neither the trail nor any pursuers. Rachel crawled into the space between the rocks and collapsed. She sat for a long time enjoying the surprising softness of the layer of pine needles and decaying vegetation that had collected in the cleft.
Rachel pulled her knees to her chest and started to cry. She rested her forehead on her knees and cried for the people she had just killed. Well, two people and a zombie who used to be a person. Those eyes with their inflamed lids and lifeless stare hadn’t looked human, but Rachel couldn’t deny the woman had once, like yesterday, been a thinking, feeling being with a family and dreams and fears just like Rachel’s.
She had probably wondered what was going on as someone, maybe even her husband or one of her kids, had attacked and bitten her. Maybe she hadn’t understood when, four or so hours later, she had started to think about nothing but eating. Her eyes had given no evidence of understanding or pity when she’d tried to eat Rachel. The woman probably hadn’t had enough brain power to think about the morality of killing another human being.
“But she was trying to kill me,” Rachel whispered.
If she hadn’t defended herself, the zombie woman would have killed her and gone on to kill who knew how many others. It made no difference whether or not the woman understood what she was doing.
“Barry and Steve sure as hell knew what they were doing.” Her voice was a little stronger now, and she realized she didn’t feel bad about them at all. Those refugees from the shallow end of the gene pool deserved all they’d gotten. Rachel had the right to protect herself.
Still, the tears flowed. Maybe she was mourning Phyllis and Lisa. Or her lost naiveté. Or the world she used to know. Or everything she might lose, like Jerry and her furry babies.
Rachel had no idea how long she cried. So much went through her exhausted mind—what could go wrong and how it would all be for nothing if she failed. Her mind continued to spin unchecked until she realized what she was doing.
“Worrying’s like sittin’ in a rocking chair,” she whispered, remembering one of her grandpa’s favorite sayings while wiping her face with the sleeve of her jacket. “It’s something to do, but it don’t get you anywhere.”
With that thought and a small smile, Rachel wiped the rest of her tears and checked herself for bites. Removing the jacket and lifting her shirt sleeve, she found the duct tape had rolled down her shoulder and was no longer covering the wound. Blood ran from the knife wound, and her forearm was swollen from the zombie’s attempt to use her arm like a turkey leg. The blood in her forearm was already collecting beneath the skin in what promised to be a spectacular bruise, and the cut was either deeper than she’d originally thought, or she had torn it farther open in the fight. Its location caused it to spread apart whenever she moved her arm.
“Jerry would have fixed it right the first time,” she said, pawing through her pack for the first aid kit. She pulled out the quart-sized box and opened it, mumbling an inventory softly to herself as she extracted each item.
“Hydrogen peroxide. Good. Some gauze pads. Okay. Suturing needle and thread—” Rachel plucked the slim package from the box and stared at it “—hell no! Really, Jerry? No fucking way. I mean, who sews up their own arm? Outside of the movies, anyway.” She shook her head and chuckled. “He probably put that in there to see if I was stupid enough to try it.” She imagined the conversation when they finally met up and the punch in the arm she would give him as she sorted through the rest of her options.
“Aha. Super glue.” She snatched the package of four small tubes like a lifeline. “That’s more like it.”
Before treating her cut, poured the hydrogen peroxide over her hands, and scrubbed her neck with it. Better to use all of it now than to become a zombie. She’d have to look for a drug store to replenish her supplies. Once she was as disinfected as she could get, she went to work on the cut. She spread a fat line of the medical-grade super glue next to the slice, pinched the skin closed, and held it for a count of sixty. When she was pretty sure it wasn’t going to pull apart, she released her hold.
Her fingers didn’t move. “Shit.”
Some of the glue had squeezed out, and her fingers were stuck to her shoulder. Rachel just stopped herself from yanking her fingers free. If she pulled too hard, she would open the wound and have to start over.
She grabbed the utility knife with her free hand and worked the point awkwardly between her stuck fingers and shoulder while twisting it back and forth. It took a while, but she managed to separate her fingers from her shoulder while causing only a small new cut to her index finger, which she treated with a Band-Aid from the first aid kit.
“That would have been interesting if a zombie came along.” She shook her head and grimaced. “Probably would have stabbed myself.” She needed to be more careful in this new and dangerous world. “At least I still have the ability to laugh.” The humor lightened her mood. There was still a hole in her heart where Jerry and the dogs were, but at least she felt she could face the coming trip without completely unraveling.
Chapter Twenty-Six
An obese man in a flapping black bathrobe with white stripes down the arms ran toward the ambulance. Jerry swerved the ambulance to the right and drove past. The guy’s hairy man-boobs bounced with each step, out of sync with his basketball belly which was swinging side to side as the guy turned and followed them just like in the movies. Jerry watched him in the side mirror, wondering if the exercise the guy was doing would have any impact on his heart attack risk.
Jerry couldn’t wait to drop Holly off with her paren
ts, if they were still alive, and get back on his way home. They’d been on the road for half an hour already, and he could still see the hospital less than half a mile away. The congestion seemed to be getting a little better. He hadn’t had to drive off the road for a few minutes. He didn’t want to be stuck babysitting a teenager when Rachel might need him. The girl seemed to be handling herself pretty well, but—
“Dude!” Holly interrupted his thoughts with a solid punch to his deltoid. “I totally smoked your butt!” Her smile was huge as she slapped the center of his chest with her open palm. “Were you pulling a trailer you didn’t tell me about? Cuz I passed you like you were standing still.”
“Ow. I’m driving here.” Jerry steered with one hand while he rubbed his shoulder with the other, trying to come up with a sharp reply to the trailer comment.
“That little love tap would hurt a girlie man like you. And a slow girlie man at that.”
“Hey, I’m wearing a heavy jacket and these boots. You’re only wearing running shoes.”
Holly smirked. “Yeah, I’m surprised you made it with all your handicaps.”
“If we ever get to a place where we aren’t about to be eaten, we can have a real race and see just how slow I really am.”
Jerry hoped it would turn out better than the time Rachel had suggested “a little early morning run in the mountains” for their second date. He hadn’t known she was an Olympic-caliber athlete and had agreed, wondering if she would be able to keep up. Rachel told him later she’d wanted to see how he dealt with defeat at the hands of a woman. Defeat was a mild description for what she’d done to him—setting a blistering pace from the beginning that left him with no energy or breath for anything but trying to stay with her while she cruised along and kept up a verbal monologue about books she had read and corrected the dogs when they got off course. Jerry was feeling exhausted and relieved at the end of the hour-long run when he saw the parking lot. Until Rachel challenged him to a final sprint to the car. He could only watch as she powered up the final hill like she was just getting warmed up. It was actually one of his fondest memories. The sight of her gracefully leaving him in the dust, ponytail swinging in a mocking bounce, was impressive. His spent legs barely carried him up the last hill, but Rachel was so impressed with his good-natured acceptance of her superior conditioning that she had invited him back to her apartment for an amazing breakfast frittata—another of his fondest memories and the basis for their breakfast tradition.