“Putz,” the man grumbles. He’s heard all the tabloid gossip on the guy and hates how he lives his life, especially how he treats the very nice young lady they have come to see tonight.
“You know, I’ve heard him on NPR a few times,” the woman says, their pace slows as their path veers against the wall in the hopes of avoiding contact with the clumsy footed man. “He’s surprisingly well spoken.”
“It’s the accent,” the man scoffs. “Makes the worst person seem refined.”
“I don’t know, he sounded…”
“Honey,” the man halts his wife, the bathrooms stand directly between them and the drunk. “Let’s find another bathroom, shall we?”
“I really have to go!” she tells him with urgency. “It will be all right.”
“Fine,” the man surrenders to her bladder. “But, let’s hurry.”
The woman rushes ahead and darts into the ladies’ room leaving her husband to stroll along the wall. He also has to go, but he feels he can hold it. He leans next to the door and waits, just in case.
Randy Russell continues, his path veering toward the restrooms. “Just keep walking, asshole,” the man warns the comic. “Find somewhere else to throw up.”
Randy ignores the advice, in fact he doesn’t even seem to hear the man, but he can see him. Randy is intently focused on the guy, who for the first time notices the blood around his mouth, but it’s too late. Randy reaches for him as soon as he’s within range, his fingers tensing on the man’s shoulders with incredible strength. The gentleman struggles to push him away but can’t match Randy’s tenacious need to bite him.
About to flush and rejoin her husband for the walk back to the lovely show, happily humming one of her favorite tunes to herself, the woman is startled by a bloodcurdling scream from the hall. Her husband is yelling out in agony in a way she has never heard, in all their years of marriage he has never so much as yelped when stubbing his tow or hitting his thumb with a hammer. The pain sounds tremendous.
She hurries to pull her pants up and rushes out to her husband. A ghastly scene meets her in the hall, her beloved is on his knees before the naked celebrity. Try as he might he can’t push the ravenous comic away, a chunk has already been taken from his neck, voraciously Randy Russell wants more.
“Arnold!” the woman screams in fright, she grabs Randy with the intent on pulling him off. Instead of fighting to get another bite out of the resisting meal, Randy turns his appetite on the one doing the work for him.
Released after an exhausting battle, Arnold can’t find a moment’s rest, he sees the ghoul fall upon his wife. “No! Marge!” His quick movement makes his fresh wound burn with searing pain, like a red hot poker being stabbed into the gash. Pain or no, Arnold won’t let the Brit have Marge. About to dive into her with gnashing teeth, Randy is halted by his neglected dinner. The man puts his own arm in the comic’s mouth as an offering, anything to save his dear wife.
Gritting his teeth, bearing the renewed torture, he pulls Randy away. “Run, Marge!” he tells his wife. “Get help!”
She hesitates, not wanting to leave him. Arnold assures her, “I’ll be right behind you, go!”
After giving his wife a head start, Arnold tears his arm out of Randy’s mouth. A piece of him remains with the zombie, buying him a few valuable seconds that allow him to toss the comic into the men’s room. Holding one hand over the wound on his forearm, and the other over the one on his neck, he follows Marge. Blood flows through his fingers leaving a trail behind him.
Marge turns to see if her husband is coming, she stops so he can catch up. Her man, her hero, is jogging toward her but not looking so good. His body leans to one side, each step he takes is slower than the last as the angle he tilts at becomes more acute causing his path to veer against the wall. He marches forward to join his wife using the wall for support, he sees her safe and sound as she comes to his aid and is able to smile at the sight of her face. It’s fleeting as the look of concern and sorrow she wears turns to alarm. Randy Russell is coming.
The door to the bathroom swings both ways, the ghoul just followed the smell of blood once he picked himself off the tiled floor and pushed his body through. Marge screams for help at the top of her lungs. Arnold is unable to go any further, slumping to the floor. Looking back at the menace coming for them his only concern is for his darling’s safety. With every bit of strength he can muster the man stands, he takes his wife’s hands from him and puts himself directly in Randy’s path.
Marge continues to yell out for help even as others come to investigate. During a lull between songs she was heard by the audience at the concert. Many have left the auditorium to investigate, including Kelly Peel herself. The songstress arrives on the scene in time to see the man she had unfortunately married grab ahold of the wounded man in the hall.
A soldier takes aim with his rifle. “Stand back!” he must tell the onlookers that disrupt his line of sight.
Kelly Peel can see a woman looking on with more sorrow than terror, she deduces it to be the man’s wife. “Hold your fire,” she says.
Puzzled, the soldier looks at her. The pop star is still holding her guitar, she rushes the struggling pair. The man has been holding Randy back with all his might, but his might is about to fail him.
“Hey, Randy!” Kelly calls to her dead spouse, not to see if he’s cogent, just to get him distracted enough for her to swing her instrument as hard as she can against his face. The zombie releases the man who falls back into his wife’s waiting arms. The woman takes the opportunity to drag him clear.
Stunned but still moving, Randy twists on the floor until he’s facing his own wife, seeing only another source of food. He crawls at her. The acoustic guitar had shattered on impact. Kelly uses all her strength to bring the jagged neck down into his skull. Having fulfilled one of the many violent thoughts she’s had toward her husband she looks to the couple on the floor, such sorrow to be leaving one another, so much love still even at the end of so many years. Kelly knows the man will die soon, she wants them to have as much time together as possible.
The soldier needs to eliminate the possible threat, he has his weapon at the ready. “Ma’am, you need to move away,” he tells the soon-to-be widow in a callous tone.
“Let’s give them some time,” a female soldier suggests.
She outranks him but still he looks to another in uniform for confirmation, a male sergeant standing next to her. Just a simple nod is issued to let him know it’s all right to stand down for the moment, that silent signal isn’t lost on the much smaller sergeant.
“Why do they always do that?” she asks in a frustrated whisper.
“Do what?”
“Check with you before following my orders like you’re drinking buddies or something,” she pouts. “Do you hang together at the Flag Pole? Enjoy topless waitresses and bottomless nachos…ugh! I just got that. Gross.”
“Calm down, Rash. I’m sure it’s no reflection on you,” her fellow sergeant assures though the one he calls Rash still looks angry.
The crowd in the hall grows as more exit the auditorium to see what is going on. The winter has been so relaxing compared to the onset of the plague folks have nearly forgotten what drove them here, what they were running from.
21
“She doesn’t look so good,” Killian remarks to his brother in a whisper by the door.
“I thought it was just me,” Hippo concurs. “She’s kinda ‘blah’, right? Like from the neck up.”
“I mean, she looks like she’s getting worse.”
The girl has both her arms tightly around her stomach that burns and churns. She’s feverish, sweating buckets, her temperature rises like an out of control fire inside her.
“Um, Jessica,” Killian says softly. “My brother and I are going to get you some help. Why don’t you lay down and wait, all right?”
She looks up at the youth, her head shakes as she lifts her unfocused eyes from the floor. “I don’t want to be alon
e,” she says.
Killian isn’t about to leave his little brother with the soon-to-be zombie, nor will he send him out by himself. He helps her to her feet, he knows the halls will give them more options even with her tagging along.
“What?” Hippo asks when he sees she is coming as well. His brother just waves his question away and signals for him to open the door.
The hall is empty but they can hear echoing voices somewhere nearby. Letting the girl walk under her own power, she shuffles to follow the boys while she continues to hold her burning midsection with one hand and uses her other to guide herself along the wall.
They proceed toward the sounds of the living, they had heard shouting and screaming earlier but now the voices are hushed. They round a corner and see a mass of people standing around, three on the floor, and lots of blood.
“Halt!” a soldier commands the boys, aiming his rifle at them.
“We’re alive!” Hippo quickly confirms with his hands in the air.
They quicken their pace towards the group, comforted by the number of people and the presence of the armed soldiers. Jessica is staggering along at her own pace.
“What about her?” the soldier asks.
“She’s alive too,” Killian attests.
“For now,” Hippo adds.
The boys pass the naked body of Randy Russell, the guitar neck still lodged in his head and join the group. Killian is star struck to see Kelly Peel, to be so close to her in person. He’s seen her around the base, but has never summoned the nerve to talk to her. She looks right at them and asks if they are all right.
“We’re fine,” Hippo answers for them both. “She’s bit.”
“Miss Peel,” the soldier says, his weapon trained on the bleeding girl, “I have to do this.”
The songstress looks to the throng of people, there’s children among them. Aside from the boys that have just joined them, a blonde girl with lopsided pigtails looks scared as she clings to her father. There are tears of empathy in her eyes, though younger than the new arrivals, she knows what is about to happen.
“That’s a cool look,” Kelly remarks about the girl’s hair, one pigtail nearly touches her shoulder while the other dangles above her ear. “I should try that.”
The girl smiles.
“Maybe we can check out the snack area?” Kelly suggests to the father who instantly understands the un-spoken meaning, they need to get the children away from the condemned.
“Great idea,” the man agrees, leading his daughter away.
“Hey, boys,” Kelly finds the faces of the new arrivals. “Would you like to join me for a pop?”
“I—uh,” Killian is speechless.
“Yeah!” Hippo again answers for the both of them.
“Good idea, Miss Peel,” Sergeant Rash says. “I’m a huge fan by the way,” she loses her military bearing to gush. “Private, escort the civilians to the concession area—Sergeant Lynton and I will take care of business out here—And, I swear to god, if you so much as think of double checking…”
“Rash,” Sergeant Lynton says in his warning tone, the tone he reserves to keep her out of trouble.
They wait for the crowd to move down the hall to where snacks were once sold to the soldiers and their families during events and movies for very low prices. Some people have chosen to remain in the auditorium from the soldiers’ estimation of the group, they’ll contend with them after the task at hand is followed through.
The older man looks up, a serene look of acceptance passes between them. He closes his eyes and awaits the end of his pain. The girl on the other hand isn’t ready to go. She shakes her head slowly as her unfocused eyes see what’s about to happen, the blurry double image of the rifle barrel being brought in line with her head.
“No, please!” she begs the large dark smudge that is Sergeant Lynton. She turns to run but is disorientated, unable to recall which way to go to get away from him. He fires his rifle just as she staggers, missing her entirely and giving her an added incentive to make a fevered break for it.
“Fuck!” Lynton curses under his breath as the delirious woman heads away from him, back the way she had come with the two boys.
Rash has some difficulty with her willing victim, even though he is far more cooperative than Lynton’s, she needs two preparatory breaths to pull the trigger.
“I’ll be back, Rash,” Lynton says, his voice low with defeat.
“I’ll come too,” she calls as he stalks off.
Putting this girl down is a preventative measure to keep the plague from spreading, and meant as an act of mercy, saving her the indignity of coming back as a decomposing ghoul. At least it is supposed to be, to the sergeants it feels more like hunting as they follow the blood trail of the dying, frightened girl. They can hear her slamming herself against something, a metallic clang allows them to zero in on where she is. They find her at an emergency exit, trying to get out.
“Want me to take this one?” Rash asks.
“I got it,” Lynton assures. He aims his rifle at the girl, aligning his sights with the back of her head as she struggles to figure out how to open the door. She hears them and slowly turns to face her killers. Lynton fires ending the girl’s torment with a single shot between her pleading eyes. She falls backwards against the door and it opens.
The humanitarian effort leaves Lynton feeling ill. Rash knows the queasy sensation, she had let a girl go in the past to avoid feeling it. She had been told a sad tale and let it get to her, only to find out the story was a fabricated yarn. Lynton’s friend touches his arm to let him know she is there for him, he isn’t given the time to appreciate the gesture. Moaning enters through the exit, lots of moaning.
22
“Yes, Gloria, fine!” a man gives up and admits to his wife, the pair haven’t stopped fighting since they got to the concession area. “I was looking at her breasts! They were covered in blood. I was concerned.”
“Checking out a dying girl,” the woman counters. “What kind of person are you, Howard?”
Most have already grown tired of the bickering couple. Killian has stopped paying them any attention and fixes his brother something to eat. “Mustard only, right?” he asks his brother though he knows how he takes his hot dogs. He wants his little sibling to answer him since he hasn’t said a word since the shots rang out.
Before the kid can say anything everyone is shocked by more gunfire, a veritable firefight rages in the halls where the soldiers are. Between the shots they hear moaning and running.
“There’s more!” the female soldier yells to her partner.
“I’ll cover you, get to the others,” he instructs.
“I’m going to get everyone out of the auditorium!” she states.
“There’s too many, Rash!” the man’s voice booms.
The soldiers are being overrun. The moaning is growing to a deafening echo in the halls. Killian stands at the entrance to the snack stand and sees the two in fatigues head down a different hall. “Close the gate!” the one named Rash pauses long enough to call to him.
He has no idea what that means, and before he can figure it out he is spotted by the dead. Zombies are heading toward him and the rest of the people. Kelly Peel is nearby, she hops up and grabs the bottom of a retractable partition, letting her weight bring it down. Killian hurries to engage the lock and backs away quickly as the dead reach the barrier.
Only a handful of corpses came for them only to reach the sudden dead-end, legions are following the soldiers. “Hey, dead guys!” Kelly Peel yells to the corpses to get their attention off of the soldiers and onto her.
“What are you doing?” the private with them asks.
“The gate will protect us, they don’t have one,” she answers and continues to scream for the dead to come her way. “Zombies, over here!”
Killian joins in yelling to the dead in hopes of taking the heat off the sergeants, he and Kelly start including insults as if the zombies may actually care. Between bellows
he glances at his brother, a boy who is usually the first to join in with yelling, especially when it involves name calling. He looks scared. All the boy can think about is his mother.
23
The dead are everywhere now, their numbers grow exponentially. Folks get bitten, get away, only to turn elsewhere. Folks die only to rise again. The armory is inexplicably locked, though the soldiers pound on the door no one opens it. There is someone inside, shooting anyone that attempts to enter through the windows. What firearms are available aren’t enough to cease the invasion from within. Panic spreads even faster than the zombies.
The door to the mess hall has been propped open but no longer do concerned people call in to the survivors as the red haze dissipates. Susan remains under her table, seeing figures more clearly as visibility improves. She dares not run to the open door just yet as a few more shots are fired. All she can do is listen to the others as they whimper, pray, and moan. The thing that created the panic, the smoke, has also kept them concealed, soon it will be gone leaving them all to face one another and whatever else is lurking among them.
She is scared, her breath catches with every glimpse of legs she sees in the thinning haze, shying away only to find herself closer to another set. She worries about the boys, out there somewhere, perhaps looking for her. She feels she has really made a mess of their lives, but they need her. Without her they will be on their own in this world.
They need me, her resolve turns to steel. Adrenaline has been known to give people, especially moms whose children are in peril, strength beyond human limitation, speed they’ve never been capable of before. Susan moves without concern for herself, racing through the lingering smoke toward the door. She dodges the figures that appear in front of her, ignores the report of the rifle as she charges outside.
The air smells fresher as she searches the night for signs of her kids. People are screaming, shots are being fired at the armory, civilians and soldiers alike run with fear from shambling figures. Susan ignores it all, her senses are open only for her boys. They all had plans to go to the concert, her legs are already taking her that way without needing an order from her brain.
Life Among the Dead (Book 4): The End Page 21