“You want to go?” I finally asked.
“No. This is for you and Nadine. You should go to Rend City. This will be enough for you to get there. And if Rend City is not there - or you get a sense you won't be safe - a few days after.”
“Nuh-uh. I'm not taking that if you aren't going.”
Ed ignored me. “Leave as soon as possible.”
“You have to come.”
Ed picked up the sack and cooler and shoved them into my body. I took them. When I did, Ed pushed me towards the back door.
“Now go!” he yelled. “Go get Nadine and leave the town. Get to Rend City.”
“And what if it's not safe?” I opened the door so I wouldn't be jammed into it.
“Find a ham radio. They're not that hard to figure out. There's got to be another Safety Zone if Rend City isn't there.”
I stepped into the yard and turned to face Ed. “Nadine and I will come back -” But Ed wasn't there. He had shut the door on me. That meant I needed to get back home, and quick. The zombies were gathering.
I ran all the way back home, using the apartments as a midway point to rest for a few minutes and realized, when I approached my door, I lost all track of time when at Ed's house. How long had I been gone? I guessed no more than thirty minutes. Thirty minutes of time Nadine was by herself.
God, I hoped she was still inside.
With the anticipation building, I threw open the door. Quite a few zombies had followed me from Ed's house, but I paid them no attention. My subconsciously closed the door behind me. She wasn't in the living room or in the kitchen.
“Nadine?”
I dropped the bags and cooler and sprinted upstairs. My heart raced like never before when I reached the top, more from the fear of losing Nadine than the actual run up the stairs. Nadine was nowhere upstairs either. “Nadine!”
“...what...” Quiet, faint.
From downstairs. I nearly jumped from the top of the stairs to the bottom to find where Nadine was. “Where are you?”
“Here.”
Two hands emerged from the cellar hole in the closet. She had placed a 24-pack of water on the floor. Seconds later, Nadine propped herself up and pushed out of the cellar. She replaced the wood covering and wiped her hands on her pants.
“What's got you all intense?” she asked.
“I didn't think you were here. Why were you down there?”
“I was,” she said plainly, “just getting some water. At least those bastards didn't find this stash.” She carried the water into the kitchen, past me without another word. She saw what I had brought in. “What are those?”
“I met an old man. In a house on the next block. Very nice guy. He gave us some food.”
“Is that why you were gone so long?”
“I'm sorry. I didn't realize I had been away that long.”
“And he just gave you food?”
I nodded. “Kind of. We got to talking about safe zones. He's heard of a new one.” I had to touch on the next part with care. I knew as soon as I told her about Rend City, she'd flip out. From the beginning Nadine had made her feelings clear about living.
“What are you talking about? Where?”
“Don't get mad. I'm going to tell you, but I can't have you getting angry with me for suggesting it.”
“Spill it.”
“There's a Safety Zone we can go to. Or at least go there and see if it's still standing.”
“You heard Abe and Susan. Freeport isn't there anymore.”
“Not there. Rend City. Ed - that's the old man - has been monitoring a ham radio and has all these maps. Rend City is a good bet. That's why he gave us the food. He said we should go there.”
“Do I really need to give that a response?”
“I felt you show at least know.”
“You go.” Nadine walked over to the front door. “I want you to go.”
“I'm not leaving you. This impasse will continue until one of us gives up.”
“It's not going to be me.” Then Nadine thought for a second. “At least I'm not going to give up in the way you want.”
“I'm not giving up.”
“Then what do we do?” Nadine asked.
“What we've been doing. Stay here and survive.”
“You see? That's not the way to live. Yeah, there are terrible things out there, but I have faith I will move to a glorious land with God when I die. I believed that before the zombies, and I still believe that.” Nadine opened the door. “I don't think you will ever understand.
“What are you doing!” I dove for the door, but Nadine skirted around the door and zipped through the opening. She was outside, and the zombies liked this. “Get back here!”
Nadine looked left and right and decided to go left. I popped outside, avoiding the first of the curious zombies, and watched Nadine run across the street. She was going straight, with no care to her surroundings. One zombie touched her, and in the dark, it looked like it bit into her.
I took off after her; I didn't have any knifes or the gun on me anymore. This would be a weaponless trip.
“Come on!” she yelled into the air. At first, I thought she was calling out to me. But when I saw her stare down zombies near her as she yelled it, I hoped this wouldn't turn out badly. It already looked like this night would end in death. Or re-death.
“Get me!” Nadine screamed.
Dammit, dammit, dammit. I pumped my legs harder, but they couldn't give me more speed. Nadine had always been the more athletic one. Jogging, going to the gym. I loved cycling and mountain biking, but jogging? I hated it.
Nadine skipped up the steps to the apartment I had ransacked earlier. She stood on the stoop waving her arms and shouting at the zombies. And they responded. It didn't take much. In fact, they seemed to ignore me for the moment. The insane woman at that building held their interest. “Let's go you idiots!” When the first of them started going up the front steps, Nadine ran inside the building. I could see the stairs through small windows up the side, and Nadine ran up them.
“I'm up here!” This time her voice was insulated by the building, but I still heard her.
The zombies kept following. Once the first few managed to get into the building, the others figured out how to maneuver the steps quicker, and they'd flowed in like water.
I changed direction and got into a pickup truck to avoid any zombies that felt like Nadine wasn't good enough. I sat there behind the wheel, unsure what to do. I couldn't fight my way directly into the building. There were just too many of them.
On the third floor, a shadow fell over one of the windows. A curtain was shoved to the side. Nadine opened the window. She stood there staring at me, her arms crossed, her body taut with frustration. And I sensed some accomplishment. A big Screw you. See what I can do? This is how I show you what I mean.
All this time, I knew what she meant, I just didn't want to accept it.
Zombies trudged up the stairs. Slowly and clumsily, but they made headway. I mouthed the words I'm sorry to her. I wasn't sure she saw me, and she made no indication she did. I did it again. This time she disappeared from the window.
I jumped from the truck and climbed onto the hood and then to the cab. “HEY!” The only thing I could think to do was play Nadine's game. Draw them away so she could leave the building. “HEY! COME TO ME!”
And they did.
The rear of the zombie crowd turned and began a path towards me. Inside the apartment complex, a few of the zombies followed their brethren and came back down the stairs. Hopefully enough of them would leave so Nadine to escape.
“YES! That's it! Keep coming!”
Scraping feet, gruff moans, scratchy throats, muffled thuds as they bumped into each other. What kind of creations were these? I still didn't understand how something like this could be born. Naturally made? Artificially created? The skin falling off like heavy globs of mud, the vacant eyes, the bodies of weak and mindless ex-people. All they wanted to survive was human flesh. War
m, blood-pumping human flesh.
From the left side of the apartment building, Nadine emerged. She strolled through the yard, over the street, and through small groups of zombies as if she were the only one in the world and nothing could hurt her. Some of the beings noticed and went after her, but Nadine had disdain for them. Found them beneath her. She walked past the rear of the pickup, eyeballing me with the same disdain.
Most of the zombies clamored for me, pawing for my legs. The truck was tall enough, and I was just out of their reach. Nadine rounded the corner to our townhouse, vanishing from view. Seconds later, even from where I was, with all the disgusting sounds the zombies made, I heard our front door slam.
How angry was I? I couldn't even rate it on a scale or formulate the words to describe the intensity of my anger. First Nadine does her act and made zombies follow her like an entourage, then she walked back into the townhouse like nothing happened. Leaving me out here, surrounded by them. I reduced my anger enough realize what exactly I was mad about. Here I thought I could help save her and here she went and left me.
I lowered myself into the bed of the truck and lifted the small tarp near the cab. A spare, some empty beer cans, and a tire iron. The tire iron gleamed in the moonlight, the curved end smiling maniacally at me. I picked it up, enjoying the weight in my hand. The sharp, prying end begged for zombie heads.
And I complied.
Stabbing down like a man in a river using a spear to impale fish, I effected the same motion as I drove the tire iron into the foreheads of any zombie I could reach. Sometimes I aimed for the forehead, sometimes the eyes, and other times whatever part of the head was closest. The air filled with cracked bones and slurping sounds as I withdrew the weapon with each hit. The occasional tone of a zombie in surprise erupted when I jammed his face full of iron. Blood spurted everywhere: in the truck bed, the street, on me, on other zombies. I kept going. No blood on my clothes was going to stop me.
Zombies dropped to the ground like lead weights. They slapped the concrete with satisfying thuds. And I kept going. A cloud floated over my brain. All I wanted to do was kill them as much as they wanted to chew on me. Head, head, forehead, eye, neck, mouth, nose, ear, ear, head. Stab! Stab! Stab!
When that cloud moved on from my mind, I stopped. My breathing elevated; my heart rate elevated; my adrenaline elevated. My muscles throbbed, yearning for more zombies. But that cloud. It hid rational thought and provided only blood lust.
I had cleared enough of the zombies to make a break for it, but I hadn't moved from the truck. My vision blurred by one need: to destroy them. Destroy them for what they did to the world. Destroy them for what they did to my neighborhood. Destroy them for what they did to Nadine and me. But as I stood in the pickup bed, I realized it was useless for one man to take care of all of them. I couldn't take care of all the neighborhood. All of the world. I could only take care of Nadine and me, and right now I wasn't doing a very good job of that.
I jumped out of the bed, through a small space between zombies, and booked it to my front door. I walked into a dark living room. Nadine not in her chair or on the first floor or on the stairs or in the cellar.
She was upstairs, crying. The tiny sobs gave his townhouse sad life.
I decided to leave her there because I was still angry. We both needed to relax a little, and if I bothered her while she was in this mood, I might have to go out there and kill some more zombies.
I grabbed a bottle of water and plopped down in Nadine's chair.
My head lolled to the side as the sounds of those things caused me to drift off...
The alarm woke me at 7:45 a.m. on Tuesday morning. This was supposed to be my day to sleep in. Nadine had to work at 8:30, and I was off all day. I had planned on biking my favorite trail, eating lunch at Starbucks, and reading all afternoon until she got home. But that damned alarm.
“Nadine! Did you set the alarm?” I called out to the bathroom.
The shower turned off and the curtain squeaked open. “Sure did,” she yelled back. “You don't need to sleep all day. Get your ass going!”
“Yeah, thanks,” I mumbled.
I got my day going...by putting a pillow over my head and going back to sleep. Nadine came in a minute later, a towel hanging off her naked body. “You don't get up, you don't get this later.” She lowered the towel and exposed her 38-D breasts and vagina that had pubic hair recently shaved into the cutest vertical line.
“By later do you mean now?”
“Later means later.” She pushed the pillow off my head placed her towel near my eyes.
I smacked her butt. “Real quick. Won't take long at all.”
“Oh, this I know.” She jerked away and found her clothes. “I have to get ready. I don't want to be late again because we... Well, you know. It's not something I can use as an excuse to the boss.”
I rolled out of bed. “You want coffee?”
“Sure.”
I went to the kitchen and prepared the coffee pot and waited until the water dripped from the percolator before turning on the TV. The news channel was on. The announcer flipped through papers and looked morosely off to the side. Other, frantic sounds clamored in the background; people moved quickly, muttering.
“We're not sure how this happened,” the announcer said. “Reports are scattered and sparse right now, but I am telling you so you can prepare.” He paused, looking down at a sheet of paper. “As far as I know, as far as what's been sent to this newsroom, this is happening around the world. Millions of people have turned into the - “ He glanced off-screen and whispered, “Is this right?” Someone said something, a confirmation probably, and the announcer shook his head in disbelief. “I never imagined saying something like this, but Millions of people have turned into the...the...undead. Zombies, as it were. I have no other information than that. Stay indoors. Do not go outside for any reason. It is not known how one turns into a zombie - bite, scratch, spit, blood - so it's safer if you remain in your home. Most importantly, do not panic. The government of the United States is formulating a plan as I say this. Leave this channel on in case more info arises or tune into FM 100 on a radio to ensure you receive all notifications of the Emergency Broadcast System.” Something was said to him off to his right. “I'm told if you do encounter a zombie, you can only kill it - stop it by impaling the head.” The announcer ripped of his sound equipment. “We're going off the air now. I hope that you all are safe and stay that way.”
The newsroom turned into a solid blue screen with EMERGENCY BROADCAST SYSTEM spanning across the top. The loud buzz echoed in the living room three times before messages appeared on the screen. Right now, it mostly said 'STAY INDOORS.'
“Nadine!” I yelled.
“Right behind you.”
“Did you see that?”
“I saw it all.” Nadine sagged into the couch. “What are we going to do?”
“Stay inside like they said. Wait for further instructions.”
“From who? If this is happening around the world...”
“I know.” I went and sat by her. “But it's early. They'll figure it out.”
Two days later, with no new messages on the EBS screen or no new instructions, and when the electricity was iffy, Nadine told me she wanted to die. That moment, when those words came from her lips, I wanted to cry. Not because I was sad, but because I was afraid to be alone.
The sunrise lit up the living room with yellow and orange. The zombies still went on and on outside, moving and grunting and being a general nuisance. My dream of that morning, or my memory of that morning... These days it was hard to tell what was what.
I stretched. I felt good. Remembering that morning refreshed me, reset me enough to make up for the lack of sleep since that Tuesday morning.
And then last night flooded back into my memory. Nadine, her trek across the street, her stint in the apartment, my craziness on the truck.
My anger returned.
So, for two days Nadine and I didn't speak
for each other. I stayed downstairs and she upstairs. I brought her food, but with each small meal collecting on the nightstand, I knew she wasn't eating. She barely drank anything, but I couldn't force her to do either. Getting cabin fever was an understatement. I read a few books, but that was all there was to do. Sometimes I'd sit at the window for hours just watching zombies. Hours. I lost track of the time when I did that. Sometimes I'd watch the same zombie move back and forth like a tennis ball. I even had a game: I found a bunch of pennies in a jar in the closet and made bets for or against the movement of the zombie. I'd pick out a spot in the yard and bet a penny that the zombie would or would not reach that point. If I lost, a penny went to my invisible opponent. If I won, I got a penny from the collective bank. My goal was to win all the pennies in one hour. I never did. Those creatures were so unpredictable.
On the third day, I noticed I hadn't been paying attention to the food supply. I hadn't even kept track in the notebook. Ed's food only went so far, and the third day was the “so far.” As was becoming the norm, I needed to go out and scavenge.
I debated on telling Nadine, but ultimately decided to say something to her. Upstairs, I walked into the bedroom and simply said, “I'm going to try to find some food and water.” I didn't even wait for a response. I walked out, donned the appropriate attire and weapons, and heaved the door open.
The red yarn stayed behind too.
I was worried. I wasn't fooling myself. My lovely wife was in bed, alone, and able to come and go as she pleased. At any moment, she could leave the apartment, and I would never know where she went. Did I think she'd do it? I honestly couldn't answer that question.
I kicked the door shut behind me. “Ed? You here?” Nothing. “Ed? It's me, David.” I aimed an ear down the basement stairs. Maybe his generator broke again. “You downstairs, Ed?” I called into the basement.
The generator's hum meant the machine worked just fine. So probably not down there.
The kitchen was tidier than when I had left it a few days ago. Something to be said about cleanliness during zombie hell. I entered the short hallway and smelled fire from the fireplace. He must be home somewhere.
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