Moriah

by Monchinski, Tony

  The dog launched itself into a sprint towards them.

  Riley was sighting along the barrel when Kevin—“Wait!”—stepped in front of her. The dog reached the three and began to circle them, its hind legs shaking, tail between its legs, tongue hanging out of its mouth. It looked wary but happy to see them, its face just about smiling.

  “You’re not gonna hurt us, are you, boy?” Kevin took a knee, placing his assault rifle in the sand, leaving Dee to stand in his towel on one leg. The dog came in close and smelled the hand Kevin held out before licking it. “There, there you go…” She leapt up, her front paws on Kevin’s shoulders, licking his face furiously. “Hey, there you go, okay!” Kevin turned his face from the onslaught, sputtering happily.

  “Glad you made a friend.” Dee had his hands out at his sides, one filled with the Python, trying to balance himself.

  “There’s a dog, there’s no zombies, right?” It made sense to Riley.

  “Hopefully not,” Dee agreed.

  “What about it, girl—” Kevin had gotten a look under her tail “—there anything on this island we need to worry about?”

  The dog prostrated herself on her back, twisting her body and offering Kevin her tummy.

  “That’s cute.” Riley had to grin, lowering her AR, returning to Dee, who thanked her as he placed an arm around her shoulders.

  Kevin stroked the dog’s belly. “Yeah, you’re a good girl, I can tell. You’re looking a little skinny, girl.” Kevin tore open a sealed package and found something edible for the dog. “Here you go, here you go. You came out to meet me and my friends, didn’t you?”

  “Feeling better about leaving the boat?” Dee asked Riley.

  “We’ll see.”

  Kevin was feeding the dog out of his hand, stroking her flanks, talking to her.

  “Hey, Kev? Maybe we can get a move on?”

  “Yeah.” Riley glanced towards Dee leaning on her. “This guy is heavy.”

  Their new companion accompanied them as they trekked through the sand, circling small dunes, leaving the lap of water on the shore behind them. The beach grasses transitioned to eastern prickly pear, the low growing perennial cactus bearing red fruit. They stepped into the first of the trees, Pindo palms with thick, strong trunks. As they progressed, the land rose slightly, and the palms grew taller. The going was slow with Dee and his foot, but the afternoon was sunny and cool, the palm fronds swaying in a slight breeze. The dog ran ahead of them and then returned, dancing around the trio, leaping into the air, excited, joyful.

  A wail froze them where they were.

  “Zombie?” Riley crouched, bringing the AR-15 up.

  “You have to ask.” Dee was doing his balancing act again, the hand with the .357 raised.

  “The dog doesn’t look bothered,” Kevin noted. Surely enough, their four legged companion continued to bound ahead and back, circling them, a happy look on her face.

  “Let’s be real careful,” Dee cautioned unnecessarily. The blanket he had wrapped around his midsection came undone and fell to the ground.

  No one found it funny.

  “Kev—” Dee looked down at his towel. “Help me!”

  * * *

  They spied the house’s roof through the palms before they reached it. The wail of the undead sounded once more, no closer than previously. The trees around the house had been cut back years before, clearing an area about the grounds. Some of the palms around the property were six meters tall.

  The home was elaborate and multi-storied, reflecting the Queen Anne style of the Victorian era. A shingle-covered, multi-gabled roof boasted tall chimneys and both shed and gable-roofed dormers. It bristled with turrets and a round corner tower. Stone banding and decorative brickwork sided the house. There were no signs of movement through the several bay windows, nor any signs of life past the tall, narrow panes with decorative stone arches. A lattice-work skirted lower portions of the house.

  Much of the outside was encircled by a veranda.

  The three humans and the canine emerged from the trees near the front entrance, which boasted a heavy double-leaf door with sidelights and fan. The windows looked down on them, empty.

  Together they worked their way around the home, marveling at its size, wary lest it were occupied. The dog ran off, lost to their sight around the side of the house.

  They found an overgrown vegetable garden, weeds encroaching upon eggplants, squash and herbs. Cellar doors abutted the home. Kevin gave them a try before stepping back, shaking his head. “Locked.”

  The veranda and grounds appeared well kept, wicker furniture and a swing in place. In the back of the house, the roofed gallery ended. An elaborate patio took over, constructed of paved concrete and decorative stone. Upon it rested a cast iron fireplace, a barbecue grill with side burners, an assortment of chairs, a sofa and table. One of the chairs had been knocked over. A stone walkway connected the patio to a door in the house.

  From the outside, the house itself appeared intact. Only minor signs of disrepair were evident, as though whoever lived here had maintained it for some time until recently.

  The zombie cried out again.

  They found a pen set up in the shade where the palms met the patio. A hodgepodge of bars and mesh, tied and soldered together, the cage enclosed five undead. There was a blur within as one rushed to the side nearest them, peering intently through the bars.

  “Well,” Kevin noted curtly, “that’s going to be an issue.”

  They neared the pen, weapons at the ready. A tall, thin male zombie stood pressed against the bars, looking out at them. It wore a suit with vest and tie, its dress shoes crusted with dried mud. A young female zombie in a soiled sundress sat in the dirt behind the first, legs splayed before it. A checkered bonnet was tied in place under its chin.

  The fast-moving zombie bore a flagitious look on its face that perfectly matched its corrupted body. It darted from one section of the enclosure to the next in an attempt to get a better view of the three human beings. In the back of the pen, keeping to itself but watching their every move, a yellow-toothed ghoul crouched, its eyes darting about furtively, its gaze astute, missing nothing. Its two-pocketed Guaybera had once been white.

  The fifth zombie stood in place off to the side, watching them with forlorn eyes. Twigs and clumps of earth clung to its beard. The ripped t-shirt it wore rode up over its blue veined pot-belly. The shirt bore a single word: COLLEGE.

  The suited zombie opened its mouth, emitting a low rasp. Riley shuddered.

  “That look like somebody to you,” Kevin asked, “up at that window?”

  A Palladian window faced them from the second story of the house. Divided into three parts, a figure was pressed against the largest, center pane, under the arch.

  “Hello!” Dee waved. “Hi!”

  “What are you doing?” Riley remembered when she’d been with Anthony and Troi and Evan, when they’d hailed the farmhouse. What had come out…

  Dee continued to wave at the figure in the window, which remained unresponsive.

  “I don’t think it’s alive.” Kevin lowered his AK-47. “Whoever it is.”

  The fast moving zombie screamed, startling them.

  “Son of a—” Dee lifted his arm off Riley and hopped closer to the pen, losing his blanket again.

  “Wait.” Riley looked from the window to the caged zombies. “Dee, wait.”

  The wicked-looking zombie that had bellowed at them was straining to press its head between two bars. The Python boomed as Dee shot it in the head.

  The zombie in the sundress looked up at that.

  “Dee, wait—” Dee had cocked back the hammer on the revolver and was lining up the suited zombie. “Wait!”

  “What?” He looked at Riley.

  “Later, okay?”

  He saw the look in her eyes. For some reason this was important to her. “Okay.”

  The zombie squatting in the back of the enclosure in its Mexican wedding shirt stared bitterly at him. />
  “What?” Dee demanded of it. The thing cracked its mouth open, a periodontal nightmare of rotted gums and carious teeth, hissing at him.

  “Hey, girl!”

  The boom from the revolver had brought the dog back. She sought Kevin’s hand, and when he petted her head she lathered his fingers with her tongue before bounding away again.

  Dee, Kevin and Riley continued their perambulation of the grounds, checking the one side they had yet to see. A concrete birdbath and its pedestal had fallen to the ground. It was a quarter full of water and their canine friend was lapping from it as they rounded the house. She saw them and trotted off to the shade where another dog lay. This second animal was old, its dark coat shot through with white hair.

  “Looks like your friend has a friend,” said Riley. The old dog brushed its tail against the ground but made no move to rise.

  “Hey there,” Kevin called. “What’s your name?”

  A sizable keg with a spigot towards its bottom was next to the house, near the dogs. A downspout from the roof leader emptied into the barrel, which was sealed with a screened lid. A wooden bucket with a ladle was set beneath the spigot. Kevin tapped on the barrel with the muzzle of his AK. When nothing stirred within he crouched and loosed the spigot, discolored water emptying into the bucket. He let it flow for a few seconds until it cleared and then he cupped his hands, the AK hanging by its strap from his shoulder.

  He sipped at the water tentatively and then wholeheartedly, lathing handfuls over his face and neck. “Damn, that’s good.”

  “You get the runs in a couple hours,” Dee warned him, “don’t blame anyone except yourself.”

  Riley had approached a blue tarp pulled over a woodpile. Two axes were embedded in a stump set next to the stack. One axe was solid steel, no more than fourteen inches from wedge to heel. The other was significantly larger, a yellow handle leading from a woodchopper’s maul with two ends, one for splitting wood and one for driving wedges.

  She wrapped her hand around the larger axe and pulled, but it did not budge. The smaller axe came right out of the wood. “What do you guys think?”

  “Nice axe,” said Dee.

  “No, I mean the house.”

  “I think they’re all dead.” Kevin walked over to the woodpile and tried his hand at the larger axe. “I think, those things in the pen—” he grunted, trying to pull the axe from the stump “—used to live here.” He strained again before giving up. “Man, that thing is in there good.”

  “What’s up in the window, then?” Dee leaned against the side of the house on one hand, his other brushing the top of the old dog’s head with his knuckles.

  “Let’s go find out.” Riley didn’t replace the smaller axe.

  * * *

  They stood on the veranda, considering the front double doors. Kevin had cupped his hands to the glass of the side window and scanned the interior of the home. “I can’t see anything.” He stepped back. “Riley, can you kick the door open?”

  “And what?” She reached out and tried the door handle. “Break my foot like this guy?” The door opened inwards, noiselessly.

  They stepped into a roomy, wood-floored foyer. An umbrella rack flanked one side of the doors, a coat and hat rack the other. Openings led to rooms on their left and right. A staircase rose to a second floor, lost around a bend at an intermediate landing. The banister, handrail and railing atop the vertical balusters were of finely crafted woodwork.

  “Dee,” Kevin looked at Riley and nodded to the right, “you wait here.”

  She handed Dee the axe. “Hold this for me.”

  Riley stepped into the library. Though the house felt empty, her assault rifle was ready. Bookcases covered two of the four walls in the library, each lined with a variety of tomes. The metal scuttle next to the fireplace brimmed with wood. An enormous desk took up most of the wall underneath a curtained window.

  As she entered each room, Riley noted how spacious and high-ceilinged each was. Together the rooms comprised a curious, decorative mix of period furnishings and arrangements and would have been considered contemporary twenty-five years prior. Fully draped windows boasted cornices at the ceiling, heavy curtains tied back with ornamental ropes. A variety of rugs and oilcloths decorated the hardwood floors.

  “Living room is clear.” Kevin’s voice was distant in the large home.

  The dining room featured a sideboard with mirrors and a rounded-edged table under a chandelier. A floor-length cloth covered the table. The parlor was taken up with balloon-backed wooden chairs, a plush-covered round table, and a velvet, upholstered sofa.

  “Kitchen clear,” called Kevin.

  Riley stared up at the elaborately detailed ceiling molding before stepping into the mud room where she met Kevin again. “All clear on my side,” she said.

  The mud room featured a variety of appliances, including a washing machine and dryer rendered useless due to the lack of electricity. Unlike the rest of the house, its floor was tiled. One door gave onto the backyard patio and the zombie pen. A second door led to a basement. A flight of steep stairs took them down to a wood burning stove, concrete double washbasin and rows of wine cabinets.

  “Whoa.” Kevin selected a bottle from the rack and blew the dust off the label. “Nice.”

  Riley crossed the basement to the cellar doors and unlatched them. She opened them to the afternoon light and stood there on the stairs, half in the ground, looking at the palm trees swaying in the breeze.

  After she closed and locked the cellar doors, they returned to the mud room, splitting up once more. Riley went the way Kevin had come, entering a kitchen shining with stainless steel appliances. Pots and pans hung from a rack above a sizeable, granite-topped kitchen island. She ran her index finger across the handles of a block of knives next to the double-bowl sink and looked out the window above the basins. It offered an unobstructed view of the zombies in their corral.

  Paint-stained drop cloths covered the walls and floors of the next room. An aluminum folding ladder was open in the middle of the floor. Unopened cans of paint lined one wall. The next room was a modern living room with a leather sectional couch and a fully stocked entertainment center that led out onto the vestibule where Riley found Dee waiting, revolver in one hand, axe in the other.

  “How’s it look?”

  “Empty,” she told him.

  “Kevin’s upstairs already.”

  She let him put his arm around her shoulders and helped him to the stairs. The staircase reached a small landing and turned before continuing, ending at a narrow, door-lined corridor. The hallway stretched from one side of the house to the other, a window at the end granting access to the late afternoon sunlight. As they reached the top of the stairs, Kevin stepped from a bedroom.

  “This place is beautiful,” he said. “These people must have been loaded.”

  Doors off either side of the passage led to bedrooms connected by adjoining baths. Dark woods composed the floors, walls and doors of this second story. Each room contained a bed and a variety of antique armoires, dressers and dressing tables. One bathroom contained a shower-curtained claw foot tub, while another featured a shower/bath stall with sliding glass doors.

  They found her in the master bedroom.

  Larger than the other bedrooms, its canopy bed was neatly made. Dust ruffles masked the gap between the box spring and the wood floor. A window seat was set at a Palladian window, the same one they had seen from outside. A body rested there, clad in a house dress, its partially skelefied head resting against the glass.

  One by one they stepped to the body and looked out the window. She’d been sitting there, looking out at the zombies in the pen. Even now the Guayabera-clad undead was staring back up at them.

  A stain, marking the wood of the wall and floor beneath the window seat, spoke to the liquefaction of bodily tissue, to the disintegration of the body upon death. Whatever stink had accompanied her decomposition was long dissipated, the windows in the bedroom open.


  Riley gazed down on the caged zombies. “They were her family.”

  “What do you think happened to her?” asked Dee.

  “She died.”

  “Well,” Kevin said as he looked the corpse over, “she wasn’t bit.” He said what they were all thinking. “If she’d been bit, she’d be roaming the house, not slumped over here at the window.”

  Who had she been, Riley wondered. A mother? Wife? Daughter? What were her hopes, what were her dreams? Staring out at her family… Had she borne hope for them, or were her last moments given to despair?

  “Riley.” Kevin was talking to her. “Give me a hand.” He’d pulled a floorcloth over. Riley rifled through her pack, looking for something to cover her hands with before they touched her. She dropped a speedloader for her Taurus and it rolled across the wooden floor.

  “I’ve got it,” said Kevin.

  “Here.” Dee had stripped cases from the pillows on the bed and tossed them across to Kevin and Riley. They pulled them over their hands and forearms and took the corpse from the window, placing it gently on the oilcloth. They wrapped her up in it and carried the carpet down the stairs.

  * * *

  “What is this again?” Dee looked at the liquor in his glass, the evening air on the island crisp.

  “Mint Juleps.” Kevin had found a sealed bottle of bourbon in the basement and mint leaf in the garden on the side of the house. “Minus the ice, minus the sugar.” They’d settled on wicker chairs on the veranda. Draped with a thin blanket, Kevin had a dog on either side of him, a tall glass in his hand and a very satisfied look on his face. His AK-47 lay across his lap.

  “This stuff tastes like…” Dee set the glass down on the table his freshly dressed leg rested on. Earlier, Riley had found a pair of men’s grey sweat pants in a bedroom dresser. Kevin had helped Dee change into them.

  “That good?”

  “No.”

  Kevin chuckled. The old dog looked like it was sleeping. The younger one glanced up at him and then at the full moon, apparently very pleased with the situation.