The Faces of Lions (Book One - The Reset)

by Angie Morel

  The “person” had been Asha. For some reason she was acting all antsy and weird, wanting to make sure Savannah would be out in the car and raring to go, like immediately. Yes, oh mighty queen, Savannah had thought with venom, I am here to serve you. She’d given her a smile instead, yanking her shoelace tight.

  Actually she’d been so relieved that she managed to drug her drink without getting caught that she popped up and completely forgot about her backpack as she hustled out to the car, mind already onto the next task, which was to make sure that Asha actually drank enough of it to put her out. Turns out she didn’t need to worry about that part at all, she thought with a smirk, looking over at the slumped figure.

  A glare slowly replaced her smug look.

  She didn’t like girls like Asha. She represented everything Savannah lacked—strength, confidence, beauty. Well, she was a tad too strong featured to be beautiful, in Savannah’s opinion, but she was definitely striking with her tan skin and light eyes. In a roomful of people, she would be noticed first. Sometimes people noticed Savannah too, but it was with a look of distaste based on the unfortunate combination of extremely large breasts—a gift from her watermelon-breasted grandmother on her dad’s side—and a mottled complexion that dotted her chest, back and face like a bumpy red and purple disease. The curse of cystic acne.

  Asha didn’t have that problem. In fact, she didn’t have any problems whatsoever. Everyone back at the house worshipped her very presence. And that asshole Rolo. It didn’t take long for Savannah to notice the way he watched her, like he was a lovesick little puppy dog. Asha was oblivious to it. Bitch, Savannah thought with envy.

  Good-looking guys like Rolo never gave Savannah a second of their time. She tried starting up a conversation with him last night, and the only thing he did was slide his eyes briefly her way before walking out of the room, completely dismissing her. Claire had been standing nearby, watching the whole thing with her big-eyed everything’s hunky-dory in the world expression, and it took every bit of willpower Savannah had not to lash out at her cousin. But she didn’t. What she did was wander around the room until the burn of embarrassment ran its course. And then she smiled at Claire, saying that she was tired and going to turn in for the night.

  And now look. She was right back on top of her game.

  It felt so good to get the better of them, especially Asha—moral tapeworm that she was. However, an uncomfortable ball was developing in Savannah’s stomach. She needed to make sure to keep the upper hand in this situation. Asha had a no-nonsense intensity about her and was strung tight. People like that were unpredictable, and it made Savannah nervous.

  Her fingernail climbed up to her face and found a pimple to pick and worry at. Asha would have to be tied up all the time, and watched. She wouldn’t put anything past her…and then she shook off the feeling of worry. Where they were going would be lots of people to share in the responsibility. And anyway, she couldn’t wait to get back to Clutch with her good news about the house. Then he could decide what they should do, as well as figure out the best way to deal with Asha.

  She’d known that her cousins would be alive and well and living the life of luxury in that country mansion of theirs. Things always worked out for them. In her mind, they got shit handed to them from day one, and even when the world went to hell, they’d managed to have plenty of food, clean water, and warmth throughout the winter. Life barely changed.

  That’s what she thought about during the long shower she took after being humiliated by the black kid, or niglet, as her dad used to call them. Little fucker laughed at her. The urge to kill him right then and there bubbled up so fast she had to swallow it down like a bad burn of indigestion. He’d get his one day—she’d make sure of it. So she scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed, all the while imagining killing them all in one gun-blasting swoop, RAT-A-TAT-TAT-TAT! Like Al Pacino in that movie her dad watched all the time, Scarface.

  When she stepped out of the shower her cystic acne was not happy about the harsh treatment with the soapy washcloth, but she felt better. And shit, she wondered, how long had it been since she’d been clean? Wiping away a circle in the steam that had gathered on the mirror, she stared at her image, hair dripping, skin raw and screaming, and knew she had to change tactics.

  She hated her cousins and everyone here, treating her like she was the enemy (of course she was, but that was beside the point) with their clear and rosy complexions, healthy well-fed stomachs, and entitled attitudes. A pampered life looked good on them. She, on the other hand, had not been so fortunate.

  She waited three days before heading south towards the interstate after that day in August. The shitty trailer park she lived in squatted just outside the city limits of Taliver on a flat treeless patch of land. The trailers and surrounding community of small neglected slab homes, commonly referred to as “Dog Town”, had become eerily quiet following a couple disturbing episodes of violence she’d witnessed through her dingy bedroom window that Friday night and Saturday morning. She’d been afraid to leave the confines of the trailer, in case the situation was as bad as she imagined. And she discovered once she was out that it was worse. Much worse. Like a zombie apocalypse. She’d seen the movies.

  However, it wasn’t as if she could’ve stayed in the trailer much longer, things were starting to smell really bad in that confined space. The “things” being her dad, who died in the recliner that he’d taken up permanent residence in years ago, and his drinking buddy Larry Lester—or Chester the Molester as she mentally called him since he seemed to think her eyes were located where her nipples were—who unfortunately was taking a crap when he bit it, rendering the one bathroom in the trailer useless.

  Keeping company with two dead men that first night made Savannah realize something. Even though she despised her mom, she’d give anything to have her somehow return from bingo and figure out what they needed to do. Not that her mom was a big problem solver, in fact, a situation like this would’ve turned her into a hand-flapping blubbering mess, but still it would’ve been nice to have someone else around.

  On that Friday, Savannah’s mother, the forsaken older sister of esteemed lawyer Phillip Malone, left early—permed hair fluffed and clutching her BINGO IS MY LIFE-O bag full of multiple daubers and “lucky” Elvis Presley knick-knacks—to sit with her powdered, cardigan wearing bingo comrades, all of whom used the two hours before the early bird games (at least the one time Savannah was forced to tag along in her youth) to complain about their ungrateful kids and husbands and critique the loose-meat sandwiches and strawberry-rhubarb pie at the fairgrounds, saying how the food was okay but much better at the Knights of Columbus.

  Her mother never returned home.

  Savannah knew she was on her own. And she knew she had to leave the small trailer before she went crazy. Setting out, she walked towards the downtown area, shocked at all the dead bodies. Her first experience with a zombie happened outside of Boom Boom’s Pawn Shop at the corner of Arthur and Milton. A deranged pizza delivery guy came at her from the alley. She screamed as his nasty hand raked down her arm, trying to grab hold. Lucky for her he tripped over a dead body with his next step, giving her a chance to get away.

  Unfortunately, her scream attracted the attention of two more zombies. As she froze, trying to figure out the best direction to run, a girl and a boy appeared out of nowhere and grabbed her, causing yet another scream. After a furious “shut up!” was directed at her from the boy, they pulled her behind them, running into an apartment building. They pounded up two flights of stairs and rushed into apartment number 302, closing the door and dead bolting it. After several minutes of hearing nothing but their own frantic breaths, they decided that even if they’d been followed into the building, they weren’t followed up the stairs. Savannah was told it was girl’s apartment.

  Her saviors were Donna and Louie, fourteen and fifteen respectively. Donna wore glasses and ill-fitting clothes, both too large for her narrow frame. In addition to those fine q
ualities, she had mousey brown hair surrounding a plain, non-descript face. It was a face you wouldn’t be able to recall if you only saw her once—hell, even if you saw her a few times. Um, I think she wore glasses? would be about it. And the glasses had numerous smudge marks on each lens, which drove Savannah nuts. How on earth did Donna not notice that, she wondered. It took Savannah a while to overcome the urge to remove the eyewear from the girl’s face and clean each side with the tail end of her shirt.

  Louie was tall with dark shaggy hair and muscular arms. On his forehead was a unibrow that Savannah’s gaze was drawn to whenever she looked his way. She couldn’t help it. It was like a fuzzy piece of yarn stuck above his eyes. Other than that, he wasn’t bad looking.

  Savannah had gotten one of her questions answered that day as they stepped into Donna’s apartment. Some people did live worse than she did. Her parents, lazy unemployed slobs that they’d been, had at least thrown away food and kept the trailer somewhat tidy. Looking around this place, a shiver crawled up her spine. Dirty dishes were everywhere, old crusty food on plates, filmy liquids had shrunk and left lines on the insides of glasses, marking their evaporation trail. Crinkled potato chip bags were on the floor, dribbles of chip crumbs on the carpet around them. She was sure she spied a cockroach moving near one of the discarded bags.

  Gross, Savannah thought with disgust. And it smelled like stinky feet and rotten food.

  But she didn’t complain, what she did was convince them that they needed to move on. They left the next day and got pretty good at hiding from the zombies during the weeks it took to get to Coben Cross Mall, which was situated on the north side of I90 about fifty miles southwest of her hometown. When they attempted to get into the huge mall, they found that the doors had been locked, which was peculiar. Zombie Day, as Savannah called it, had happened on a weekday during mall hours—so they had to wonder why the doors would be locked when the mall would’ve been open.

  The answer to why they were locked revealed itself on the other side of the doors within minutes. People were inside the mall. Clutch and his group of six (which had been eight at one time) had claimed the mall as their own, securing all outside doors. They said they’d let Savannah, Donna, and Louie in on the condition that they strip off all of their clothes in full view of them. They said it was because they wanted to make sure they weren’t infected, but Savannah could hear them giggling behind the glass. Having no choice, they did as instructed, skin puckered from the cold, wearing nothing but the distinct hue of mortification as they stood before the doors awaiting judgement. She remembered thinking they were laughing at her large hanging breasts, almost positive she heard the muffled word “milk-jugs” from within.

  Cleared, they pulled their clothes back on and were allowed inside.

  Clutch, who was sixteen, was the leader and Savannah knew within the first day that he was the love of her life. His face was a little messed up (from a fairly recent battle it would appear) but she thought it gave him character. He seemed to have a thing going with Brenda, who was one of two girls in his group. Brenda was a tall girl with squinty eyes, long black hair, olive skin, and noticeably crooked teeth. They crossed one another and stuck out here and there like they had to fight for space inside her narrow mouth. Savannah dubbed her “snaggle-tooth”. She kept that to herself, of course.

  Another thing she noticed when Brenda opened her mouth was the laugh that erupted from it. The God-awful sound (comparable to a barking and coughing seal) came with irritating frequency and made Savannah want to jab ice picks into her ears every time she heard the bray. Needless to say, it didn’t take her long to develop a hearty dislike for Brenda.

  The other girl was Penny, a petite and choppy-haired blonde with darting eyes. She was a twitchy girl, to the point where it looked like she was on drugs. Which Savannah discovered was the case. They all were. In fact, there seemed to be a never-ending supply of alcohol, drugs, and cigarettes. It’d been nothing but a party since they arrived here in a car from the east two weeks prior, she’d found out.

  The boys in Clutch’s crew consisted of Butcher, a tall chubby kid who was fourteen and constantly felt the need to hitch his pants up; Darth, a fifteen-year-old with white-blond hair and skin so pale it had a blueish tint; and Cheeto, a thin weasel-faced boy with droopy eyes and bad skin who was also fifteen.

  Clutch took it upon himself to assign nicknames to each. Butcher, because his dad had owned a butcher shop; Darth, because he was the polar opposite of Darth Vader’s blackness and Clutch thought it was funny; and Cheeto because he’d been eating from a bag of Cheetos when he joined the group. The girls were of less importance and got to keep their given names.

  Butcher seemed okay, but Savannah thought Darth was a loser. He would go on and on about video games, about how this level was blah blah blah and so on. How he thought that anyone (especially her) gave a flying fuck about that shit now, Savannah didn’t know. She tuned him out most of the time. Cheeto was a loser too. She didn’t think he knew how to do anything other than stare at her chest and adjust his junk. There was no doubt in her mind that he was a nose-picker, too. He had that look.

  Savannah and Donna did their best to fit in. Anything was better than being outside with the zombies. Donna kept to herself most of the time, smudged glasses and all. Louie, however, had a rather strong personality, and it didn’t take long for him to say a couple of things that Clutch didn’t like, so Louie ended up being exiled. They even gave him the keys to one of the five cars recently parked at the mall exits so he could drive away.

  The cars were Savannah’s idea, selected by finding dead people in parked cars (not blocked in) that must’ve either just arrived or just gotten in to leave on zombie-day, so the engine wasn’t started. Otherwise she would’ve had to try and match keys on dead people to cars in the huge lot, a futile task. And the cars people were driving at the time had bumped into other cars, or in a couple instances, the mall itself, and run out of gas, so those were out too.

  For some reason, the others didn’t seem to care about having a means of transportation out of here. The car they’d originally driven had run out of gas a block from the mall. Once here, they planted. However, Savannah thought it was important and made it her duty to start the cars every now and then, keeping the batteries charged. Always good to have options, she thought.

  Unibrow Louie wouldn’t leave though, banging on the doors, threatening to break them. So Clutch let him back in. And then Louie got the shit knocked out of him. When he came to, he realized his mistake. He should’ve left when he had the chance. Clutch proceeded to drag him down the mall towards the book store. There, he was to be “Barnes and Nobled”. Savannah didn’t know what that meant back then, but whatever it was it didn’t sound good. When they were a few stores away, Clutch told everyone to shut up.

  Arriving at the store, they watched in silence as he took out a ring that held dozens of keys, selected one, and used it to open the metal and Plexiglas accordion-style security gate that spanned the entire width of the entrance to the book store. Quickly he shoved Louie in and slammed the gate shut behind him, locking it.

  After a few seconds Savannah understood why they’d been instructed to be quiet. A handful of zombies were trapped inside the store and at the sound of the slamming gate they lurched out from between the bookshelves to investigate. They made a beeline towards Louie as he started screaming. He tried running but they caught him in the biography section. He didn’t stand a chance.

  Savannah and Donna had no choice but to watch since Clutch looped his arms around their shoulders and sandwiched himself between them. He made sure they had direct, upfront viewing—and she could feel him watching their reaction from the corners of his eyes—while Louie was being savaged to death. Savannah thought he was testing their loyalty, making them watch their friend die to see if they’d protest. She pretended to watch but made sure to look a tick above where Louie was on the floor, until he no longer moved and the zombies wandered back to
the gate, trying to get to them but having no clue how to get out.

  Judging from the bloody lumps on the floor near Louie’s mangled form, two other people had gotten the same treatment. Savannah had found out later that the two had been part of the group originally. Seth and Josh. Seth had dared to challenge Clutch, and Josh had sided with him. Seth got “Barnes and Nobled” first.

  Savannah had understood. It was a different world now and you had to become lions if you wanted to survive. And if that meant killing off the weaker or more troublesome members, so be it. Turning her head she smiled at Clutch. He smiled back. Louie hadn’t meant anything to her, not really.

  She remembered the heavy weight and slightly sticky feel of his arm on her neck, and the squeeze he gave her shoulder right before Brenda barged in and ruined it. Being his “sort of” girlfriend, she probably didn’t like how chummy they were getting. Savannah watched as Brenda scuttled in front of Clutch and wrapped her arms around his waist.

  He said “Cool, huh?” to her and laughed, removing his arms from Savannah’s and Donna’s shoulders in one quick move, like he was doing the butterfly stroke in a pool. He quickly grabbed ahold of Brenda’s hips and pushed her up against the gate, trapping her there. He started making ape sounds as he pounded on the Plexiglas, driving the zombies crazy inside the bookstore while Brenda barked and squealed, making Savannah feel like she was at a zoo. She watched with envy as Clutch hooked his arm around Brenda’s neck and they’d walked away, breathless with laughter. There was a moment right before they walked off that Brenda shot Savannah a smirk. That was the point where her dislike morphed into full blown hatred. Maybe Brenda would do something to be “Barnes and Nobled” one day. Savannah could only hope.