by Gibb, Lew
While the three of them were preparing for bed, Constance told Rachel she couldn’t wait to find a man and start to build a family.
“What she really wants to know is what it’s like to do it,” Rhonda said, wide-eyed.
Constance swatted her arm, her own pale skin turning red. “Rhonda! Don’t say things like that in front of strangers.”
Rhonda smiled and rolled her eyes. “Everyone knows you’re crazy about Jeremy. You two should just get it over with and do it already.”
Although Rachel hadn’t lost her virginity until her freshman year at college—a drunken encounter with a guy she thought could be the one but turned out to be just another horny college guy whose best feature ended up being his forgettability—Rachel couldn’t remember being as naive as these two seemed to be. They reminded her more of middle-schoolers than eighteen-year-olds. She had worked with a lot of kids like them before she started her own catering business. The wholesome kids usually didn’t last long. Their fresh-faced optimism made them seem perfect for jobs with heavy customer contact and made for great interviews, and but they were unprepared for an environment where their coworkers—and more often than not their bosses—regularly drank and did drugs on shift. With that on top of the musical sleeping arrangements and the unforgiving take-no-prisoners attitude in the kitchen, the wholesome kids inevitably ended up being chewed up and spat out with depressing regularity.
Rachel’s thoughts were interrupted by Rhonda and Constance arguing—again.
“Constance,” Rhonda said. “We’re supposed to sleep in jeans and t-shirts in case of an attack.”
Constance threw her jeans over the back of the dinette bench that formed one end of their bed. “If those things are so close I don’t have time to put my pants on, we’re screwed anyway.”
The curse word and the pragmatic summary of their situation caught Rachel off guard. The girls might not have been quite as sheltered as she had convinced herself they were.
Despite Constance’s rationale, Rachel was keeping all her clothes on, including her fleece and her Kevlar jacket.
Chapter Thirty-Four
“O! M! G!” Holly yelled, drawing the letters out and punctuating them with an exaggerated sigh. “I can’t believe it took us all day to get here. It only took twenty minutes to get to the hospital with my parents the other day.”
They were finally within a few blocks of Holly’s house, in a neighborhood that had been built in the early part of the twentieth century with smaller footprints than the ones in the suburbs. The streets were strangely deserted.
“What happened to all the cars?” Holly asked.
Jerry kept his eyes moving; he didn’t want to get caught unaware yet again. “Probably everyone left. The theory was that the city centers would be the most infested with zombies because of the population density.”
The occasional overgrown yard and the number of single-car garages were other differences from the suburbs. They added to the character of the neighborhood, in Jerry’s opinion. Not that it mattered anymore. The most important feature of a neighborhood from here on out was going to be how defensible it was. Jerry grimaced and reminded himself to stay focused. He couldn’t let his guard down just because they were almost there.
“Weird,” Holly said. She squinted and swiveled her head from side to side. “It’s like the eye of the storm or something.”
Jerry’s eyelids felt like they were lined with alligator skin, and his shoulders felt like they were trying to merge with his ears. He tried to relax whenever he noticed them clenching up, but with so many things to look out for, it was a losing battle. He was used to dealing with stressful situations on the ambulance and even prided himself on his ability to compartmentalize, but it looked like dealing with other people’s medical emergencies as a paramedic was a little different than facing dismemberment by packs of hungry zombies around every corner. It only added to the stress that he had been pushing hard all day, hoping to leave Holly with her parents and then continue home, but now it was starting to get dark.
He looked at his watch. Seven fifteen. There was no chance he was making it home today. The thought of spending another night not knowing what had happened to Rachel and the dogs brought a fresh batch of tears to his eyes. He shook his head and dried his tears with his sleeve. He was going to be a basket case in a couple of days if he didn’t get himself under control.
Jerry checked to see if Holly had noticed him losing it. She was staring straight ahead, biting her upper lip with her hands clenched together in her lap. The purple ski pole leaned against the door beside her. He realized he had been so focused on his own problems he hadn’t thought much about how she must have been feeling. What if her parents weren’t there? Or what if they were zombies?
“I’ve been thinking,” he said, slowing to a stop, “with all the attention this thing attracts, we should probably park a little ways away and go the rest of the way on foot. Maybe cut through the yards like we did when we stopped for gas. That way we won’t draw too many of them to your parents’ house.”
Holly kept her focus straight ahead for a few seconds like she hadn’t heard him, but then she blinked and turned to face him. Her eyes looked like two wet marbles, but her face was animated. She nodded. “That sounds good. We could park at the end of the alley, then come in through the back.”
Jerry’s stomach grumbled. He realized he hadn’t eaten since the day before. “Then maybe we can eat something.”
Jerry took his foot off the brake and accelerated. When Holly pointed, he turned into the street that ran perpendicular to her parents’.
She pointed ahead. “That alley runs behind our house.”
About eight zombies were headed their way from opposite ends of the block as Jerry backed into the alley and shut down the engine.
“Let’s go out the back. We’ll be screened by the fences. Maybe when there’s no movement in the ambulance, they’ll give up and move on.”
They went out the back door as quietly as they could and started into the alley.
A woman with long gray hair in a braid that hung over her shoulder popped up from behind one of the beige three-yard dumpsters lining the alley. She locked eyes with Jerry and let out a cry like a cat with its tail caught in a meat grinder.
The sound penetrated to the center of his brain, and his already rapid heartbeat ramped up a notch as she started their way. A teenaged boy and a paunchy older man in a stained white t-shirt appeared behind the woman.
“Over here!” Holly shouted. She was on the opposite side of the alley from where her parents’ house was, probably not wanting to lead the zombies right to them.
Jerry watched in awe as she scaled the alley fence like a cross between a gazelle and a chimpanzee, vaulting onto a trash can and grabbing the top of the pickets before dropping out of sight on the far side.
He followed, though much less gracefully. After tossing his new spear—a sharpened shovel handle he’d found in the street that wasn’t very sharp but was at least made of hardwood—over the fence, he used the fork pocket on the dumpster's side as a step and scrambled up, feeling proud of his ingenuity until his foot slipped and his knee hit the metal lid with a hollow boom. He barely stopped his fall forward in time to avoid being stabbed in the face by the pointed tips of the fence pickets. There was another hollow bang, and then hands were scrabbling at his legs. Jerry threw himself over the fence. He landed off balance and fell sideways into the fence, but his jacket protected him from scrapes and splinters as he thumped to the ground, already scrambling to his feet. He nearly twisted his ankle on the spear handle, which was actually a good thing, as otherwise he might have forgotten it in his panic to move. He scooped it up and followed Holly. She moved diagonally across the yard and seemed to scale the second fence even more smoothly than the first before she once again disappeared from view.
Jerry hurried to catch up, shooting a glance over his shoulder and letting out a sigh of relief when he found no zombies re
ady to pounce from the fence. After climbing the next obstacle without any injuries, he paused at the top and rested one foot on the fence’s center rail while looking toward the alley.
The gray-haired woman’s head levitated into view like a magic trick, and she let loose another piercing scream before leaping into the yard and starting Jerry’s way.
The sound sent another electrical current of fear coursing through Jerry. The only thought in his mind was to get away as fast as possible. He lifted his rear leg and jumped too early. His leap turned into an awkward tumble when his rear foot hit the fence and his pants snagged on one of the pickets.
He fell, foot pegged to the picket like a pendulum, and body-slammed the fence. He bounced once and stopped, suspended upside down, with his head eighteen inches off the ground.
Something slammed into the other side of the fence, and then hands were tugging on his boot. The current of energy that shot through his body put to shame the previous adrenaline burst he’d experience in the metal head’s room. Jerry screamed and twisted like a fish on a line, rattling the fence so hard he thought it might collapse.
But the rattling fence wasn’t enough to drown out the new screeches coming from the alley. Jerry gritted his teeth, twisted so his back was against the fence, and did an upside-down sit-up that levered his body parallel with the ground. One of the hands holding his foot had a chunky silver ring with a turquoise stone the size of an eyeball and half obscured by a rusty film. With both his shaking hands, he grabbed his stuck pant leg and pulled, using his free leg to push with everything he had. The pressure on his boot increased until he thought his ankle might be dislocated.
When the gray-headed Jack-in-a-Box face appeared over the toe of his boot. Jerry pushed harder, and the fabric let go with a sudden jerk. Jerry sailed backward, staring into the woman’s inflamed eyes until he slammed into the ground.
The act of breathing turned into something he’d once known how to do; now, he couldn’t remember the sequence of commands needed to move air into his body. The excited look on the woman’s face as she pulled herself over the fence and the new thuds rocking it propelled Jerry to his feet.
Mouth moving like he was chewing the air, Jerry turned and ran. He had no idea how he made it over the next fence and into the front yard. In a blink, he was running toward Holly, who stood on the other side of the street. She had just turned his way, no doubt wondering why he was taking so long, when he waved her back and shambled after her, sucking tablespoons of air into his paralyzed lungs as he ran.
Holly waited at the curb. Her eyes widened as she took in his ravaged pant leg, his pained expression, and his labored breathing. “Are you okay?” she stage-whispered.
Jerry could only nod and wave for her to keep going. The trip through the yards and over their respective fences got a little easier for Jerry once he could breathe again. Holly continued to amaze him, keeping them moving in a big circle that seemed to be heading back to her parents’ house while putting on an athletic display that had Jerry fighting to keep her in sight. She actually hurdled one of the fences, a waist-high chain-link that Jerry managed to hop by putting one hand on top and swinging his legs sideways over it in a way that was almost graceful. The sound of the pursuing zombie posse faded as the group chasing them continued past on their previous trajectories.
Thoughts about what kind of food Holly’s parents might have were starting to pop into his head when Holly climbed another fence and let out a scream as she dropped out of sight. Jerry scrambled after her, expecting to find her surrounded by a ravaging pack of zombies. The actual scene was nothing his mind could have conjured—it was both surreal and slightly comical.
A ginger-haired child-zombie of five or six—looking like a vertically-challenged adult in jean shorts and a red-flannel shirt—cantered along about ten feet behind Holly as she jogged the yard’s perimeter like they were playing tag. The front of his outfit was stained with blood.
Holly yelled from the far side of the yard as she ran, “His name’s Tristan! I used to babysit for him.”
That explained why she hadn’t stabbed him. The thought of having to kill one of his friends was just one of the things Jerry had agonized over since the world went crazy.
Jerry gripped his spear and got ready. The little guy’s eyes were locked on Holly. After she passed his spot on the fence, Jerry jumped into Tristan’s path, landing with his spear held waist high and pointed at the mini zombie. The boy shifted his focus and kept coming without missing a step. He ran into the sharpened shovel handle like he didn’t even notice it. There was a moment of resistance when the point made contact with the boy’s tiny chest, then at least a foot of sharpened hardwood disappeared into the boy’s body. The boy’s arms flew forward like he was asking for a hug. Jerry was so surprised he nearly lost his grip on the shaft, and then the kid’s legs gave way, and the little body fell at his feet.
Jerry’s lips curled in revulsion as he tried to pull the spear free. It was a lot harder than he’d expected. He finally had to twist the shaft before he could free the spear. The boy wriggled around on the ground, and Jerry reluctantly stabbed the kid again, a little higher and slightly off-center, aiming for the heart. His aim must have been good because the kid finally stopped moving.
Jerry stared down at Tristan’s body until Holly grabbed his arm. “We have to go.” She kept her head turned away from the dead boy.
He used one foot on the kid’s chest to wrench his spear free and followed Holly over the next fence and into her parents’ yard.
Holly’s mother was obviously a gardener. The yard’s edges were brimming with peonies, butterfly bushes, mums, and a vegetable garden. The garden, which was overflowing with caged tomatoes, squash, and more plants that Jerry couldn’t identify, took up the rear third of the yard. He thought about how there was probably a lot of fresh food going to waste in backyards all over the city. If they could find some way to preserve a fraction of it, they wouldn’t have to worry about food for quite a while. Rachel would know what to do with it, she was always pickling or jarring something.
They walked up three concrete steps to the back patio. The redwood table and two benches were just like the ones Jerry’s parents had. Holly stepped over to the barbecue, lifted the lid, pulled out a miniature Bronco’s helmet keychain, and returned to the door. Jerry remembered eating with his parents on their back porch before they moved to Florida—BBQ chicken, grilled vegetables, and iceberg lettuce. It was the only meal his mom would serve. She’d said the point was not to work up a sweat making a fancy meal, so that was it. A sweating bowl of cold watermelon would always be waiting in the center of the picnic table for dessert. That was his idea of the good life—enjoying the cool evening air and great food with your family. Would he and Rachel ever barbecue with their children? Or even get the chance to have children?
Jerry noticed Holly was just staring at the back door. Maybe she was still a little freaked about the kid. Or, more likely, she was a lot freaked out about her parents. Jerry didn’t blame her. He was sure he’d be seeing that kid’s face in his dreams unless something even worse came along to replace it.
“You okay?” he asked, putting a hand on her shoulder.
She nodded and gave him a weak smile.
The house was a typical post-WWII foursquare and had a back door instead of a sliding glass one the way they did in the burbs. He could picture the layout from the countless others like it he had been inside over the course of his career. In the back half would be the kitchen on the right, judging by the greenhouse window that was no doubt over the sink, and the family room would be on the left. There would be a living room and dining room at the front and bedrooms upstairs. And who knew how many zombies. Or maybe they would find Holly’s parents alive.
Holly’s eyes were huge again and on the edge of tears as she turned to face him. Her voice quivered. “Will you go first?”
Jerry nodded. Then he had a thought. “If they’re infected, do we put them out of
their misery or try to run and lock them in there?”
Holly’s eyebrows almost met above her nose. “I couldn’t kill Tristan. For sure I won’t be able to do it to my parents. Even if they are zombies.” She bit her lower lip, and her eyes were vacant for half a minute. “I don’t want them to hurt anyone. Would you do it for me?”
Jerry gripped his spear a little tighter and nodded.
Without talking about it, they took their positions, Holly with a hand on the door and Jerry waiting with his spear ready just like last time. It was amazing how they were already becoming a team.
Jerry focused on the door, but his spearpoint caught his attention. Tristan’s blood hadn’t even had time to dry. It glistened with dark, coagulating globs that clung to the splintered grain where the wood had parted. A couple blue threads clung to one edge, twitching in the breeze. Jerry hoped things would go smoother this time. After this, he wasn’t going anywhere else until he had a weapon he could depend on.
“Once we’re in, close the door so none of them can catch us from behind.”
Holly rolled her eyes but didn’t say anything. She slid the key in and turned it. Then they did what was becoming routine: Jerry nodded, Holly pulled the door open, and Jerry darted in, tense and ready for an attack, eyes darting around, trying to see everywhere at once.
No one attacked. They were standing in the family room: beige carpet, overstuffed couch against the back wall flanked by matching armchairs and facing a massive TV mounted on the opposite wall.
Jerry gripped the handle of his spear and listened to Holly entering behind him with a strong sense of déjà vu. The place felt still and musty, like no one was there.
Holly pulled the door closed with a soft click.
Muffled creaks beneath the beige carpet accompanied their movement across the room. Jerry stopped at the hallway where the unblemished carpet led to the living room and checked on Holly. She was right behind him, ski pole wavering in front of her determined face. He moved down the hall and stopped to check the empty half bath. This time he darted his head around the corner instead of using the cop move he’d done previously. Clear.