by Tristan Vick
8
A Long Hard Day
Slamming his body into the pickup, the one-armed man moaned as he clawed at the glass window of the cab. Meanwhile the one-eyed woman stood on the opposite side of the cab and pressed her teeth up against the glass, as if she was attempting to eat through the window to get to Alyssa. These people were clearly crazed. They were eating each other, for God’s sake! Now they were trying to eat her too.
With a loud bang, and the shatter of glass, Alyssa squeezed off a shot. She had lowered her aim too much when she looked away and completely missed. The bullet ricocheted off the dashboard and smashed into the windshield on the driver’s side. Fracture veins in the safety glass cobwebbed from where the bullet hit. She loaded another round in the chamber and steadied herself. The recoil of the gun was greater than she had anticipated. Trying again, she aimed straight at Armless Joe’s head. Point-blank range. If she missed again at this distance she’d kick herself.
She fired and the bullet shot through the glass and pierced Armless Joe’s head. He immediately dropped to the ground, a single hole marking his forehead where the bullet drilled in.
The rifle’s kickback threw Alyssa off her balance and she fell backward and slammed into the passenger’s side door, and walloped her head against the window with a loud crack. Fighting hard not to black out, she fumbled around on the seat looking for some more bullets. Her trembling fingers made it difficult to load the rounds into the chamber smoothly. They rattled around something fierce as she shivered with fear and anxiety.
“Shit!” Alyssa cursed as she dropped the bullet she was trying to jam into the chamber. The other zombies were coming for her. This time it was a frizzy-haired Jane Doe, with the crazy eyeball, who was pushing her arms through the broken glass and trying to get at Alyssa.
Alyssa lined her up in the cross-hairs of the rifle scope, held the gun as steady as she could, and then pulled the trigger. The monster’s head flew back and blood splattered across Alyssa’s sweaty chest. The one-eyed woman dropped to the ground. Alyssa slumped down in her seat and sighed a huge sigh of relief. But it was short lived. Every time Alyssa took one of the mindless creatures out there was another one already there to take its place.
“Jesus Christ!” Alyssa exclaimed, recognizing the next monster’s face. It was the clerk from the convenience store. But how could this be? He should be dead. She saw him torn to pieces not more than ten minutes ago. There was no way he could be standing here. No way, she told herself.
Yet here he was, standing before her with half of his face peeled off and giant chunks missing from his neck and shoulder. A strange, sickly looking, white pus oozed from the corners of his eyes, but it was definitely the same kid. Alyssa continued reloading the gun with trembling fingers. Tears streamed out of her eyes. She was growing sick of all the crying she had been doing today. But it was all she could do to cope.
Looking back up at the kid as he poked his head in through the broken window and snapped at her with his virgin-white teeth, she whispered, “Sorry,” and closed her eyes as she pulled the trigger.
Opening her eyes, she saw that she had merely shot him in the left pectoral. But like the doctor, who had proved himself to be oblivious to the pain, the kid wasn’t even fazed by the gunshot and kept clawing his way into the car. She put the barrel of the rifle into his open mouth, slid it in so his teeth clacked on the metal as he gnawed on the gun’s barrel, and then she pulled the trigger again. Once he fell out of sight she waited a few minutes for more to come, but none did. Finally, it was over.
Alyssa cautiously stepped out of the pickup truck and looked around. Her legs almost went out from under her. Her body felt like a ton of bricks. She rubbed her sore shoulder as she looked around at the dead bodies that littered the ground all around her. Had she done this?
Behind her, up the road, nothing much remained of the animal hospital but the charred skeleton of the building’s blackened frame. With a disgruntled sigh, Alyssa slung the rifle over her shoulder and began limping up the road toward Newcastle City. Hopefully someone there knew what in the blazes was going on.
Standing on the side of the road, Alyssa peered up at the body of an elderly woman high up on the telephone pole, clinging to it for dear life. It appeared as though the woman had tired herself to the pole with a sweater after her arms became too weak to hold her weight anymore. Seeing the poor old woman stuck up on her perch, sitting listless with eyes wide open, and stricken with fear deeply unnerved Alyssa. Obviously she had climbed up there to get away from the Walkers only to have died of the dehydration or sheer terror. Alyssa bet it was probably the cruel combination of all three that did the poor woman in.
“What is the world coming to?” Alyssa asked herself, speaking out loud. Looking down at her leg, she checked the gauze bandages. Everything appeared fine. Her stitches were holding, at least for now. She decided to press on.
Looking back down the road, the way she had come, she saw the shambling pack of Walkers that slowly stalked her. Lucky for her, they didn’t seem to be in any hurry to catch up with her. Some of them were walking aimlessly about, bumping into other Walkers. Another one wandered off in the wrong direction entirely. If they weren’t so horrifyingly bloodthirsty, she thought, their fumbling, shambling, lack of intelligence would be rather amusing. But there was nothing funny about them.
Alyssa had made her new friends when she had mistakenly come over a hill in a nearby meadow and, like a herd of grazing cattle, there they were. Alyssa considered taking them out on the spot, but she was running low on ammunition.
So, instead of wasting precious bullets, she slowly backed away and just kept hobbling along the road. As long as she kept her distance she figured it was no big deal, although it was the strangest processions she’d ever witnessed.
Upon getting to the zenith of the hill, she looked out across an expanse of the valley below and spotted nearly fifty or sixty mindless roving Walkers cutting across the road on the other side, like cattle moving to their next grazing pasture. She hadn’t anticipated a second horde just over this hill. At least, not so close.
“Shit!” Alyssa cursed, keeping her voice to a whisper. She was caught between two groups of Walkers prowling for their prey. For fresh meat.
Quickly, Alyssa ducked down to make herself less noticeable, picked up her rifle and began loading shells into its chamber. She was outnumbered nearly ninety to one with nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. Her small streak of luck had finally run dry.
Crouching there, out in the open, she turned her head up and looked at the wretched corpse of the old woman stuck up on the telephone pole. “I take it you ran into a similar situation?”
As the sun sank out of view and the dusk settled comfortably on the horizon, Alyssa finished loading fresh bullet into the rifle, cocked it, and then mentally prepared herself for the approaching horde. Although she abhorred violence and tried to avoid it at all costs, it seemed that today it was the only tool keeping her alive. She knew that, like she had done to the doctor and that poor kid from the 7-Eleven, she’d have no choice but to inflict more violence on the reanimated dead. It was either go down fighting or climb up a telephone pole and pray for an angel to save her. She’d rather take her chances on the ground than get stuck up a pole with no way down and no escape but death. The very thought to of it was too much to bear and sent shivers down her spine.
That’s when she noticed it out of the corner of her eye. An abandoned Chevy Malibu. It was an ugly silver, but that didn’t matter. Alyssa made a beeline to the car and grabbed the handle. With a click, the door opened and she let out a big sigh. Clambering in, she quickly pulled the door shut behind her and lay down on the floor. Breathing as quietly as a mouse, she clutched the rifle close to her chest. Somehow it made her feel safer just having it close to her. Being stuck in an abandoned vehicle wasn’t much better than being stuck anywhere else, but at least it was shelter. The car would conceal her from the hungry horde, and if she had any luc
k left at all they’d simply pass her by. She knew she’d be stuck here for the night, but that’s the price she was willing to pay to get out of this pickle alive.
9
A Mother’s Worst Nightmare
Rachael’s alarm went off at six thirty-five am as usual. Reaching over, she smacked the snooze button and promptly fell back to sleep. Moments later she jolted herself awake and squinted at the clock again. Her head throbbed. What’s more, she found herself back in her own bed with nothing on but her silk nightgown.
“Dammit,” she mumbled to herself, her voice dry and rough. She rubbed the temples of her forehead, adding, “A little too much wine for you, sweetheart.”
Just then she sat up in bed with a frightful worry. Her heart raced. What if Hector had called for her in the night and she had been passed out like a veritable Rip Van Winkle?
Realizing her breasts were visibly hanging out, she wrapped herself up and cinched up the sash around her waist as she got up and made her way into the hall. Yawning, Rachael hurried into Hector’s room. Looking down at his Spider-Man bedspread jumbled up at the end of the bed, she gasped at the sight of the empty sheets. Her chest filling with panic, Rachael dashed into the living room where Hector liked to watch his morning cartoons before school, but he wasn’t there either.
“Hector?” Rachael called out. “Where are you, babe?”
From behind the kitchen counter Rachael heard a strange noise. It sounded like a slow grinding of sorts. The kind of grinding you’d hear with a manual coffee grinder. Slowly she eased up to the kitchen nook and peered around the edge of the counter. Covering her mouth, she fought hard not to scream at the terrible, stomach-churning sight she beheld.
Hector was crouched over their cat, Trixie, eating her disemboweled remains. He slurped up the entrails and licked his bloody fingers as though he were licking off delectable sweets. Rachael crouched down and put her hand on Hector’s shoulder. Her heart was pounding so hard she thought it might explode in her chest. “Honey, what are you doing?”
Hector didn’t respond to her touch. Looking over his shoulder, he let out what sounded like a grumble, as if he didn’t appreciate the interruption, and went back to chewing on what remained of poor Trixie.
“Stop it!” Rachael demanded, and she forcefully grabbed Hector by his arm and tore him away from the dead cat. His arm felt awfully cold and clammy. Hector gazed at her with milky-white eyes. He wore a vacant expression and his mouth was dappled with specks of red gooey cat entrails. His skin had a jaundiced hue, which gave him a sickly look. Rachael recoiled, letting go of his arm, and was about to scream but quickly smothered her mouth with a cupped hand.
“Baby,” she said in a whisper, “I think you’re sick. We should get you to the hos—”
Without warning Hector lunged, grabbed his mother’s, arm and sank his teeth into her. Rachael grimaced with pain and let out an animal-like whimper. Instinctively, she defensively shoved him back. As Hector lurched backward he managed to tear off a bit of flesh from her arm, which caused Rachael to squeal with horror-filled agony. Hector slammed into the stainless steel fridge in their kitchen, which shook and rattled from the harsh impact, but before Rachael could even begin to feel sorry for slamming her son into the refrigerator, Hector bared his blood-drenched teeth and lunged at her again.
Rachael screamed as her son’s jowls snapped at her with the ravenousness of a wild animal. Suddenly, she felt a sharp pain in her right shoulder as his teeth dug into her. Rachael screamed out in pain, but she didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know why he kept attacking her. Fighting back tears, Rachael said, “Hector, it’s me, your mom!”
Wrapping her arms around Hector, she pulled him tight to her chest and held him there. He fought and squirmed desperately to get out of her grasp, but she managed to hold onto him. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she tried to keep him subdued.
After a bit of work, Rachael managed to wrangle him into the living room, but he wouldn’t stop writhing and kicking wildly, attempting to break free of her. It took all of her strength to maintain her hold on him. But he didn’t show any signs of tiring and she wasn’t certain she could keep it up for much longer. Her plan for now was to somehow get him back inside his room, lock him in, and call 911.
In a fit of rage, Hector somehow managed to kick the island counter with such a force it knocked them both back into the kitchen table. The two of them rolled over the table top and tumbled off the other end. Getting to her feet, Rachael felt Hector’s hands reach around her, and his fingernails suddenly dug into her chest. His tiny fingers cut jagged red lines across her breasts and she screamed out as her flesh was slashed open.
Wincing from the pain, Rachael tried to pry Hector’s cold fingers off of her, but his strength was inhuman. Reaching over with her free hand, she found the empty wine bottle she had left on the table. They must have knocked it to the floor in their tumultuous tumble.
Gripping the bottle neck with a tight grip, her knuckles as white as bone, she closed her eyes as she smashed the bottle down onto Hector’s head with all her strength. The blow was so severe that it sent what felt like the sting of a thousand hot needles up Rachael’s arm. The impact sent Hector staggering back and he fell over the back of a toppled chair.
“Oh my god, oh my god,” Rachael murmured, beside herself. She couldn’t believe what she had just done. She would never deliberately hurt her little prince. She had just reacted. That’s all.
Rachael looked down at her aching shoulder. Rivers of red blood trickled down her neck and arms, and gathered to form droplets that ran off her tightly clenched knuckles. It dawned on her that she was fighting for her life.
Hector staggered back onto his feet and bull-rushed her. Rachael swung what remained of the jagged bottle as a warning for him not to come any closer, but it didn’t seem to have any effect. He slammed into her abdomen and sent her staggering backward. Her foot nicked the corner of the sofa and she tripped over it. Her backward momentum caused her to crash through the glass coffee table in the middle of the room. Glass crinkled, popped, and shattered under the weight of her fall.
Rachael sat up slowly and pulled a shard of glass from her elbow, and quickly discarded it. Reaching out for her with blood-soaked hands and blood-encrusted fingernails, Hector growled and chomped viciously at the air. Hector kept creeping closer and closer. His tiny bare feet dragged across broken glass with a horrible scraping noise as he closed in on her. He seemed to be oblivious to the pain and the trails of blood he left behind.
“Hector, it’s me, your mother! It’s mommy! Don’t you recognize me?” Tears swelled in Rachael’s eyes, but her son did not respond to the sound of her voice. Crawling backward on her elbows to evade his grasping fingers, Rachael hand searched around for the bottle with one hand, but she couldn’t find it. It had rolled all the way to the other side of the living room.
Instead of the bottle, Rachael retrieved the next nearest thing, and picked up the standing lamp that had fallen next to her. Thrusting the lamp out like a dog catcher's control pole, she deflected Hector’s advances. But he kept on pushing forward, until, finally, Rachael felt her back pinned against the wall.
With a resounding crunch, the lightbulb on the end of the lamp shattered, and jagged shards of glass cut into Hector’s chest. Rachael’s motherly instinct kicked in and she dropped the lamp, opened her arms wide, and embraced her rabid son. It was the only thing she could think to do. She felt Hector breathing on her neck with a disturbingly cold breath. Just then a horrible searing pain shot into her neck as Hector sank his teeth in. Rachael reeled back, slammed into the wall, and fell down onto her hands and knees. As she tried to crawl away, Hector dug his nails into her back, latching on to her like a koala from hell.
Rachael’s instincts screamed for her to get away. Grunting, she pushed herself up, but Hector, whose little meathooks dug in tight, brutally held on. Unable to shake him off, Rachael tried to turn around and slam him into the wall, but the added
weight caused her to lose her footing, and with one wrong step she staggered violently toward the window. With a crash they both fell through the glass.
Catching ahold of the curtain, Rachael dangled out of her sixteenth-story apartment window. Slowly, she pulled herself back up, her arms aching tremendously with each tug. Reaching up with bloodied fingers, she clenched onto the windowsill and climbed back inside.
Tumbling to the floor, Rachael stared up at the ceiling, panting. Her whole body ached from the assault. Soon the adrenaline would wear off and the real pain would hit her. Grunting, she forced herself to sit up and look out the gaping hole where the window once was. Scanning the ground below, she looked down at the small, broken frame of her son lying on the pavement.
“No!” she gasped. “Oh god, no. Please, no. This can’t be happening. Oh, God!”
Covered head to toe in her own blood, Rachael ran as fast as she could to the elevator, but for some reason the power had gone out. Mashing the elevator button was getting her nowhere, so she decided to take the stairs instead.
Leaping down two and three stairs at a time, she flew into the lobby and darted out the main entrance. She would have asked the doorman, Henry, if he’d call for help, but he was nowhere to be seen. Once outside, she stepped out into the middle of the street and came to the spot where Hector had fallen. But there was no body. Putting her hand up to block the brilliance of the morning sun, Rachael frantically scoured the street in every possible direction, but to no avail. He was simply gone, all except for a large splotch of his blood.
Pacing barefoot in her revealing nighty, Rachael began bawling out her son’s name. “Hector!” she screamed. “Hector!”