Life Among the Dead (Book 4): The End

by Daniel Cotton

  “Yup,” the boy sleepily responds from the backseat. His brother is curled up beside him on the large back seat like a dog. The boys share a massive knitted afghan the car’s owner had made as a seat cover.

  “I’m leaving my gun,” Luke tells him. “It’ll be right here on the front seat. Don’t touch it unless you absolutely need it, kay?”

  “Kay,” the boy says, drifting off to sleep, the night’s excitement taking its toll.

  The keys are left in the ignition with the engine off. It’s going to get cold, but he hopes not to be long. Figures pass by on the street aimlessly shuffling along. Luke silently exits the car, the modest sound of the door closing is covered by the sounds of chaos. He had locked all the doors save for the passenger side, a fact he will have to remember when coming back.

  Like a thief in the night, he creeps to the corner to ensure the passersby are still passing by. He quickly jogs to the large red truck to claim a matching axe from the tools attached to its side, an axe that also matches the red suit he wears. Armed, he heads to the hospital using the bus as cover.

  21

  “Are we there?” Rocky sits up, groggy and disoriented. She doesn’t feel the bus moving and assumes they’ve arrived.

  “Christ, Rocky!” Killer B exclaims, clutching her chest over the sudden arousal of her captain. “You scared me!”

  “Why are you so jumpy?” the woman asks in her usual early morning grumpy tone. Her dry, hoarse throat makes her voice crackle.

  “I tried to wake you,” Killer B says beside her so she can keep her voice low. “This town is frigging weird.”

  “My kinda town,” Rocky quips with a smile. She quenches her thirst with a shot from her sports bottle. The burning gin washes away the stickiness and eases the building headache she often feels upon waking.

  “No. There’s people running around. Gunshots. A report on the radio that warned—Oh my god!” Killer B loses her train of thought when she looks out the window and sees Santa again, stalking past the bus, carrying an axe. “He’s back!”

  “Ok, that is friggin’ weird,” Rocky agrees. “Where’s Penelope?”

  “She went in a while ago to see what the hold-up is.”

  Rocky watches Santa enter the hospital while she ponders the situation. “Stay put. I’ll be back in a sec.”

  “You’re leaving?” Killer B panics, she’ll be all alone if Rocky goes.

  “We need to get our girls and get the fuck to Waterloo,” the woman answers at the front of the bus. She crouches to attain something under the seat. “I’ll be fine, I’ll have this.”

  Instead of keeping the bus’s tire iron with the spare in the luggage compartment along the under carriage, Rocky made it more accessible should the need arise to use it for any reason other than its intended use. She’s named it Ugly.

  Before Killer B can change her mind, Rocky is off the bus, confidently strolling to the door. The worried woman left all by herself rushes to close the door and waits.

  22

  Matching the Greek symbols he remembers from Amber’s shirt to those adorned on the eaves of a pink house, Archie is certain he has found her sorority. He can only hope that she is inside as he rushes up the walk and climbs over the cars that have been parked in front like a wall. He is in too much of a hurry to think it odd, he simply embarks the short flight of stairs onto the porch and knocks on the door.

  Behind him, from the street, the bizarre people follow the sound of his rapping. They are thwarted by the circle of autos, left to reach and moan for the caller at the door.

  Another set of knocks. Louder and more urgent than the last. Archie jiggles the knob impatiently as if whoever had created the barrier may have forgotten to lock the door.

  He stands on his tip toes to make himself taller so he can peer in through a window, having to look over the curtain that covers it. His weight is pressed against the door to give him balance, until it opens and he falls into the house.

  He lands hard on his chest having barely enough time to react and break his fall. All he can see around him are feet. Before he can correct himself he is held down by unseen hands, a large weight is applied to his back making it hard to breathe, let alone address those that detain him.

  “Hit him in the head!” one voice advises.

  “We don’t know if he’s one of them,” another calmly states.

  “Is he bit?”

  “I don’t see a bite,” the weight on his back says.

  “His arm is bandaged! Hit him in the head!”

  The weight eases off of him, leaving his ribs sore. He has to take a minute to collect himself before rising to his feet in the brightly lit house. The men that greeted him so harshly back away. They are armed with bats that they keep poised to strike should the intruder give them a reason.

  “Who are you?” one of them asks, Archie recognizes the voice as the one that called for his head. He also looks vaguely familiar.

  “Archie Mead!” the new arrival answers.

  “What do you want,” the largest of the three men inquires. Archie assumes he is the one that had sat on him.

  “I’m looking for someone. I want to make sure she’s safe.”

  “Who?”

  “Her name is Amber. She’s…”

  “Oh!” the three all say in unison with much relief. They relax their weapons.

  “So, you know her?” Archie asks.

  “Of course we know her,” the smallest of them answers, grinning broadly. “Well, we know her now.”

  “Before we just knew her from afar, around campus, followed her on Gander.”

  “Followed her around campus,” the largest one quips. “When this happened, we all had the same idea: Gotta save Amber.”

  “What’s going on down there boys?” a voice asks from upstairs that stills Archie’s heart, it’s her.

  “Just welcoming a new arrival,” the smallest explains.

  “Another one?” she asks sounding excited. “One more and I have all seven!”

  “All seven?” Archie asks, heading for the stairs, anxious to meet her at long last.

  “Dwarves,” the large one explains, not sounding too happy about it.

  The three follow Archie as he steps onto the flight. “Dwarves?”

  “Amber loves the Story Book Land characters, when we started showing up she said we were like the Seven Dwarves to her Snow White.”

  “Then, she started renaming us,” the large one adds grumpily.

  “Oh my god! Guys, look what I did to Bashful’s hair!” Amber appears at the top of the stairs, holding a short young man for all to see. She has braided his long hair into dozens of thin strands and bound the ends with brightly colored rubber bands. He doesn’t look as if he appreciates the make over until she places her hands on his shoulders to turn him around so the men below can see the back, his view becomes of her chest for many seconds. When she turns him back around his face is set in a wide smile.

  “Looks great, Amber!” the three trailing the newcomer applaud her handiwork.

  “Can you do mine next?” one begs.

  “So, what shall I call you?” ponders the girl. She appraises Archie thoughtfully.

  “My name is…” he attempts but is cut off when she comes to her own moniker.

  “Bashful,” she announces.

  “I thought I was bashful,” the newly braided dwarf says sounding downtrodden, his face still flushed from his close-up peek of her chest.

  “Actually, my name is…”

  “Ok, I got it! My new thoughtful helper will be known henceforth and forever more as Dopey.”

  “The fuck I will!” Archie rejects the notion. He hasn’t come all this way, been through all he’s been through to play a dwarf.

  The dwarves and Amber are shocked at first. Amber laughs, “Uh-oh. Somebody’s Grumpy.”

  “He can take Grumpy!” the large one says on the stairs. “But I don’t want to be Dopey.”

  “Look, I came a long way, been through
a lot tonight to get here,” Archie tells his princess. Everyone on the planet says the same thing about nice guys, he is compelled to assert himself for once in his life. “I’m Prince Charming.”

  Amber looks at him for a few seconds, taken aback that someone has actually challenged her. “Ok.”

  The dwarves can’t believe their ears, all thinking the same thought, why didn’t I think of that?

  Not knowing if his name is still Bashful or if he is the new Dopey, the braided dwarf is cast aside so the princess and her Prince can stand closer to one another, look into one another’s eyes, getting lost until Amber finally speaks, “You look familiar. Where do I know you?”

  “I follow you on Gander,” he responds in a whisper as he goes in for a kiss.

  “You!” she seethes upon recognition, her beautiful brown eyes stare angrily into his. “You’re the one that embarrassed me!”

  “No…I just…” he tries to explain that all he did was say that she didn’t have to post such revealing images of herself.

  “I haven’t been able to show my face on Gander because of you!” She refuses to hear him out though it was more than just her face she was showing.

  “All I said was…”

  “This is the guy!” Amber tells her other admirers. “The one that humiliated me on my own page!”

  The helpers close in around him, ready to cast him out, especially since he has just arrived and taken the role they all came for. With him gone perhaps one of them can be the new Prince Charming. The four of them stare at the man, awaiting the word from Amber to show him the door.

  “Kick his ass!” she commands.

  They hesitate. Though they outnumber the guy, though the world as they know it has a new set of rules, they aren’t sure if they can take him. “Uh, Amber?” one questions.

  “Whoever makes him cry gets a blow…“

  She doesn’t even have to finish her proclamation, the dwarves set upon the infidel at once, the intruder of their perfect fantasy world. Archie has only been in a few fights in his lifetime, won some of them, he doesn’t have a very violent nature, but at that moment he will do anything to leave. This isn’t how it’s supposed to be.

  Hands grab at him, thin and frail hands designed for rolling multiple sided dice, as well as Grumpy’s meaty mitts, Archie evades them. He shoves one of the dwarves hard against the others so he can make for the stairs, all the while Ambers calls for his head. The knight in shining armor bounds down the steps as fast as he can take them with the dwarves already on his heels.

  At the landing, Archie slides into the front door. He opens the portal wide and to his shock he sees the odd people from the street have made it over and under the barrier of cars the helpful nerds had constructed to protect their princess. He’s quick to close the door but the berserkers are on the porch. They reach in as he closes it, their arms block the jam. He must hold his weight against it as they do the same from the other side.

  The dwarves are oblivious to what is happening at the door, too focused on their foe to see that he is actually holding back what they are here to defend against. All they see is mental images of their lovely Snow White fellating them, and the means of making that a reality.

  Grumpy is in the lead, allowing his bulk to be taken by gravity, increasing his inertia as he bellows and barrels towards his target. Archie has no recourse but to dive away, he feels awful about it but the dwarf has left him few options.

  With Archie’s absence from the door, it opens wide. The strange people from outside topple in as Grumpy continues to the landing. He’s unable to stop, to his horror. He runs right into their waiting arms.

  The other dwarves, Archie, and Amber watch as the mob tears Grumpy apart. The young man screams as his ample flesh is bitten and torn away in generous portions. The victim reaches for help, calls out for aid in anguished screams to no avail. The foyer is splattered and flooded with his blood as the ghouls gnash greedily, the wet sounds of their feeding fill the air as his cries cease.

  Archie is in a state of disbelief, he can’t quite comprehend what he’s just seen, further he can’t believe he was running around with these things lurking about. He’ll have to brave the streets once more, the way out is blocked by these insane individuals. He looks around the sitting room he’s found himself in as the crazies rise to their feet, done with Grumpy and ready for more, he needs to find a way out. A back door.

  23

  The lobby is shockingly quiet, save for the moaning coming from the ER and echoing screams down the corridors. Luke takes the stairs up to the fourth floor, hoping that he isn’t too late.

  Susan is nowhere in sight as he enters the unit, more moaning greets him along with the shuffling of feet. He calls out, “Suzy!” in desperation.

  The sliding strides pause and start drawing closer the more he calls out to his daughter. At the nurse’s station he waits for a sign. He’s exhausted, but knows he has to keep going for the boys.

  A rustle from behind the desk has him peering over the top. He poises his axe to defend himself from whatever may lurk. “What are you doing here?” a familiar voice inquires, setting him immediately at ease.

  “Oh, Suzy!” Luke exhales. “I got the boys. They’re waiting. Let’s go.”

  “You brought the boys?” she asks astonished. “Where’s Mrs. K?”

  “Dead. Same as the rest of the city,” he tells her as the slow scraping feet draw even closer. “That’s why we’re leaving.”

  “I can’t leave!” she counters. “I have patients. Josh is very sick now, too!”

  “He was bit. He’ll be one of those things soon, if he isn’t already.”

  “’Those things’?” she questions.

  “Zombies,” her father tells her so matter-of-factly that it makes her laugh.

  “Have you been drinking?” she asks. “What am I saying? Of course you have.”

  “How do you explain the people you’re hiding from?”

  “With science, not science fiction,” she retorts. The rough scrapes of hospital slippers dragging along the floor are almost upon them. “Where do you propose to take us anyway?”

  “Out of the city. Someplace safe.”

  “This is an epidemic, it’s everywhere.”

  “I have the police organizing an evacuation to the reserve depot in Waterloo…”

  “Waterloo will be just as bad as… Where exactly are my kids?”

  “In the old bat’s car, waiting outside,” he tells her.

  “You left them outside?” she asks, horrified.

  “They have a blanket, and my…gun,” Luke realizes neither item will ease her maternal fears. “They’re sleeping and well hidden. Can we go?”

  “Josh,” she insists, gesturing towards the treatment room she had left him resting in.

  The sliding footsteps increase in speed as they zero in on the talking pair. Luke pulls his daughter safely away just in time as a woman in hospital pajamas lunges from the shadows.

  “Ms. Jackson!” Susan says with alarm after watching the person in her care fall hard to the floor. She goes to help her back to her room but her father has a tight grip on her arm, keeping her from aiding her patient.

  “Hold on, Suzy,” he tells her, keeping the axe between the woman on the floor and himself. The patient rises, reaching for them with a moan. Luke holds her at bay with the head of the axe against her chest. “Don’t you find her behavior a bit odd?”

  Ms. Jackson has been a patient off and on for the past year, bouts with Dementia often result in her splitting her time between Intensive Care and the psych ward. She has never been shy about complaining or asking for things, treating her visits like trips to the spa. Now she is strangely quiet as she claws the air.

  “I’m just going to put her in a room,” Luke says carefully pushing the lady on the end of his axe towards an open suite. “We have to get to the boys.”

  “All right,” Susan surrenders. She’s concerned about Killian and Hippocrates, but also her hu
sband. “I’ll get Josh.”

  Just as Luke is shoving Ms. Jackson into a dark room for safe keeping he has to shout for Susan to wait. The patient is roughly hurled into the shadows so he can grab the handle and close the door. Luke races to his daughter as she opens the treatment room where her husband rests.

  “Josh,” she says tenderly, finding him standing near the door.

  Luke arrives as Doctor Newton takes a step towards his wife. He keeps Susan from going to him. “Dad, I have to check his wound before we go.”

  “I told you, he was bitten. He’s one of them now,” the father explains. He holds Josh back with the axe as he had Ms. Jackson. The man he hates reaches for them making pitiful sounds.

  Susan tries to push past her father but he won’t let her through. She shoves against him which causes the axe to slip. Josh falls forward onto his wife. The embrace is anything but tender, Josh grips her tightly. Susan screams, all her father’s talk about ‘the bite’ makes sense all of a sudden as the man she married brings his head to her body.

  The doctor’s grip releases suddenly. Opening her tightly closed eyes, Susan looks at the axe buried in her husband’s face. Horrified she recoils out from under him. Her father has just killed her husband before her eyes, she isn’t certain who exactly the monster is.

  Luke pulls his axe free from Josh’s skull, he has never liked him, never actually gave him much of a chance, but he feels bad for Susan. He turns to see his daughter backing away until she reaches the nurse’s station desk. Once distance is put between her and her father, she collapses to the floor.

  “Suzy, I’m sorry I had to do that…”

  “No you’re not!” she accuses. “You hated him.”

  “That’s true,” he agrees. “But, I didn’t want this. I would never hurt him unless I had to. We have to go. Now.”

  A thump from one of the open rooms is followed by an ungodly screeching. The man Luke had helped subdue appears in the doorway. He has wiggled out of his straps save for one ankle, the feat has left his hands skinned down to his wrists and his one free leg without a foot. The man so eagerly wanted off the bed he used enough torque to pop his foot off at the joint and tear the attached skin. Still tethered to the bed he drags it behind him. The sight is enough for Susan to offer her father her hand so he can lead her out of this nightmare and to her boys.