Isobel’s happiness over the books she’d pilfered quickly disappeared as they stood together at the windowed-doors at the front of the bookstore, viewing the expanse of pavement. Estimation was not her forte, but she guessed that there were about fifty undead attending the party that Vaughn’s gunshots had invited them to.
“Fantastic.”
“What was that?” Vaughn had caught the breathy sarcasm.
“Nothing. Let’s go.”
“You’re in the lead, remember cowgirl?”
“Don’t call me that.” She leaned her right shoulder into the door, gun ready, and pushed.
On the Run
Isobel wanted to leave the backpack of books behind. The combined weight of them made her slow and awkward as she fought for her life. Vaughn was in his element, moving quick and calculated, shooting only when necessary and hitting everything he pulled the trigger away from. Isobel used all the bullets in the clip and couldn’t keep her hand steady to swap the empty one out for reload. She hit three of the corpses she shot at but didn’t bring one of them down.
“If I make it back alive, I’m never leaving the building again!” she yelled at Vaughn.
“Speak for yourself. I love it out here!” he called back.
The other side of the mall parking lot was deserted. There were undead scattered across the street near Target and in the lot of the Liquor and Wine store. It looked to Isobel like they had a little bit of time.
The shoe store was locked so Vaughn pulled a crowbar from his bag. He hit the glass of the door five times before he could make a hole for them to climb through. They walked quickly passed the high heels, flip flops, and Crocs. All anyone wanted or needed was running shoes. No loafers, no sandals. They didn’t even go barefoot at Willow Brook unless they were sleeping. Running shoes were laced up before breakfast as they never knew when the dead could be upon them.
Finally they reached the athletic section and started searching with their flashlights. “I can’t find my size! Why can’t I ever find my size?” Isobel said, frustrated. It didn’t help that she had to keep looking up to keep tabs on the approaching dead. They had started lurching across the distant street, drawn by the noise of Vaughn’s crowbar on the glass.
“Pick something that will work Isobel! We have to keep moving!” Vaughn already had a new pair of boots laced up and a handful of extra shoelaces in his hand. He was checking out the rest of the sales floor for any dead that may have been locked in the store.
She found a suitable pair that was only a half size too large for her feet. The dead were halfway across the parking lot of the mall. She wanted to grab a second pair but didn’t think she had room in her pack. She sat down in the aisle to put them on but she heard something from the front of the store. One of the zombies had reached the glass front doors. She could read his shirt when she shone her flashlight in its direction. I’d rather be bowling.
“I’d rather you were bowling too!” she yelled at him.
Vaughn laughed but gestured for her to hurry up. “They aren’t going to give up. They’re like marathon runners. Really slow marathon runners.”
“He found the hole in the door!” Isobel yelped and tried to focus on tying her shoes.
“They made it here faster than I thought they would,” Vaughn commented.
The bunny goes around the tree and into the hole, Isobel thought, to get the hell out of harm’s way. Bodies filled the front of the store now. There were about twenty rows of shoes between them but the aisles were unobstructed so the dead made their way through the store with ease. Isobel hopped to her feet and collected her bag and weapons.
“We’ll have to find another way out. There’s got to be an exit in the back,” Vaughn said. They ran to the storeroom, pulling shoeboxes off the shelves in a poor attempt to slow the undead. The storeroom was dark and soon after entering it Isobel tripped on something and fell to the floor.
“Shit!” Isobel screamed. Her backpack full of books made it difficult for her to get up. Her flashlight had spun away from her and come to rest against a door. A cool breeze came from the crack at its bottom.
“Vaughn, my flashlight, that’s the way out!” Isobel pointed. His flashlight shone on her but he moved it away to expose the door more fully.
“Come on then!” Vaughn yelled. Isobel tried to pull herself to her feet but the bag kept her down and a burning pain rose in her left ankle.
“I twisted it. My ankle, I can’t use it,” Isobel cried, terrified that this would be the moment when Vaughn would leave her to save himself.
“Are you kidding me?” He said as he ran back to Isobel’s side to help her to her feet.
Clumph. The sound of feet collapsing cardboard shoeboxes reached Isobel’s ear. Clumph. The dead were getting closer.
“I can leave the books. It’ll be easier,” Isobel said.
“No. You don’t ever leave anything behind. If you do that, the trip was pointless. Now hop for all you’re worth!” The zombies had made it into the pitch black storeroom. Vaughn and Isobel crashed forward into the back door. It gave way and let them out into the cool night air.
With Vaughn’s help, Isobel was able to make it across the parking lot and up the embankment to the freeway.
“I have to stop!” Isobel yelled as she pulled free from him.
“We have to keep moving. I already said that!”
“It hurts, Vaughn! We have to find somewhere safe to stop for a second.”
“Fine,” Vaughn didn’t want to stop but he didn’t want to listen to Isobel’s whining any longer. “Look around for a vehicle with tinted windows. We’ll be much better hidden.”
Isobel found a gray van with windows as dark as the night that surrounded them. She tried all the doors and found the back two to be unlocked. She stood and stared at it.
“Well, open the damn thing. Those dead people are coming. One of them has made it to the hill.”
“I’m scared.”
“Scared, but you feel alive again, don’t you?” He smiled. Without a moment’s hesitation Vaughn opened the doors to the empty van. He helped Isobel inside, climbed in himself and closed and locked the doors behind him. Three or four minutes passed before the dead reached the freeway. Vaughn imagined them trying to climb over the guardrail. Isobel held her ankle and rested her head against her knees. She needed to cry but she wouldn’t allow Vaughn to see her that weak.
They spent the night in the van. Vaughn fell asleep quickly and slept deeply, leaving Isobel to analyze every bump in the night. Her ankle was throbbing and her body shivered in the cold. She was reminded of Jill and her night outside.
“Going outside is never a good idea,” she said to herself to drive the lesson home.
Missing and Missed
It was midnight and Isobel and Vaughn had not returned to Willow Brook. Ben paced the apartment that he shared with Isobel. He knew she was tough but even tough people made mistakes and ended up dead. Ben went to ask everyone if they’d heard anything. The Cabels were already asleep. Rob was reading to Gabe and hadn’t heard a thing. Molly didn’t care. Hayden was just mad that she didn’t have her books yet. Jeff and Markus weren’t taking him seriously.
“Maybe they ran off together. I always thought they’d make a good power couple,” Markus laughed.
“Please don’t joke. I don’t care what happened to Vaughn but I’m worried about Isobel,” Ben said seriously. “Even a gunshot would mean something to me.”
“There had been shots earlier but that was some time ago. Other than those ones, the night has been quiet,” Jeff said.
Ben finally made himself lay down on the couch. He lay awake staring at the sliding glass door that led to the balcony. He willed Isobel’s form to appear there, tired and battle-worn but alive and uninfected. She didn’t show up.
Ben had spent so much mental energy on his love for Anna that he hadn’t realized that he was starting to care for Isobel as well.
Brace Yourself
Isobel
woke as the sun was coming up. The inside of the van warmed quickly as the rays shone through the untinted windows of the cab and onto the dark upholstery of the seats. She had forgotten about her ankle as she tried to climb into the driver’s seat for a better view.
“Ahh!” she yelled from the pain. No one responded and she realized that she was alone. Vaughn was not in sight.
“That motherfucker!” Isobel looked out the front window and north up the crowded freeway. No movement anywhere. Fearing he had gone back to Willow Brook without her, she would have to stabilize her ankle to make it back without his help. She said a silent thank you as she looked around. The van she chose to crawl into was full of computer repair materials. She could make something work. After ten minutes of sorting through the items in the back she had two large pieces of hard plastic from a computer tower and a handful of USB cables. Isobel was proud of her brace. Just as she was wrapping the cords tightly around her lower leg the back doors of the van opened.
“Good morning cripple!” Vaughn said happily. He had an armful of first aid supplies, including an ace bandage and an ankle brace. “I wasn’t sure what would help so I grabbed anything related to ankles. What the hell is that?” he asked, looking at the technical parts strapped to her leg. Isobel laughed so hard she started to cry. Vaughn climbed in and closed the doors.
“You look like a cyborg,” Vaughn laughed wildly at her.
“Fuck you, Vaughn. I thought you had abandoned me here to die!”
“I considered it,” Vaughn said. Isobel stopped laughing and worked at untying the cords.
Vaughn let her pick her own brace and put it on. He opened the doors again and helped her down.
“Let’s hop to it,” Vaughn laughed.
“You are a horrible person,” she replied. He helped her along and they made it back to Willow Brook without further event.
(Below the) Surface Wounds
Ben surprised Isobel with a kiss when she made it to the top of the fire escape and back into her apartment.
“I’m so happy you are ok. I was worried sick,” he admitted.
“I’m fine. I just hurt my ankle. We had to stop,” she said as she dropped her backpack on the floor and fell onto a chair in the living room, completely ignoring his display of affection. “First, and last time, I’m going out there.”
“Did you see any other survivors?” Ben asked.
“No,” Isobel lied. Vaughn was still in her apartment, drinking a bottle of water and hanging around for no apparent reason. She didn’t want to bring up the bookstore bum.
“What did you get? Besides a sprained ankle?” Ben asked.
“Shoes and books,” Isobel pointed to her feet and then the backpack. “You can dig through it. I’m sure you’ll know which one is for you. In fact, can you give everyone else their books? I think I’m going to sit here for awhile.”
“I’m going back upstairs. If you see Hayden, tell her to come up.”
“Thanks Vaughn, for helping me back home.”
“Yep,” was all he said as he left.
Distractions
Vaughn would have recounted their adventure with more enthusiasm and creative license than Isobel but, as the other residents heard of her return and came to hear her recount it, she stuck to the truth. She even told them about the Barnes and Noble bum now that Vaughn was out of earshot. Her story was interesting enough, making embellishments unnecessary.
“You met someone else? All I got to meet was a dog. What was he like?” Molly asked. She hadn’t seen any living people when she was forced to brave the outdoors.
“He was crazy, with a capital C. I don’t know if he started that way or if the circumstances made him lose his mind.”
“He could have hurt you,” Ben said, putting his hand on hers.
“He wouldn’t even let me in his bathroom.”
“Still, what if he had a weapon?” Ben continued.
“I’m not a child Ben! I could have handled it,” she pulled her hand out from under his. “Ahhh!” she screamed as she stood up, having forgotten about her ankle again. She sat back down, beaten by the injury.
“At any rate, we’re happy you made it back,” Moira said, “and thank you for the books!”
“I hope they were worth it,” Isobel replied.
“I’ve already started mine!” Edward smiled, holding up his new novel, a bookmark snug in its first pages.
Even though Isobel brought back with her a terrible attitude toward the world, the new literature in the complex had helped to keep everyone distracted and happy.
Admitting Defeat
Rob had never been good about asking for help with raising Gabe. In fact, he had outright refused it from Gabe’s mother’s parents. They hadn’t believed in Rob and they wanted to make sure that their daughter’s child was reared correctly in her absence.
He was happy the phones didn’t work; happy her parents lived in South Seattle and had a heavily populated, heavily infected city between them. He knew if they could see Gabe now, his behavior growing stranger by the day, they would turn to him and shake their heads. You’re doing it wrong! You’re a failure as a father! He could hear his mother-in-law’s voice yell. The most difficult part of it was that he knew she would be right. Gabe’s obsession with the dead was growing every day. It was time to ask for help.
“Hey Gabe, do you ever miss your school?” he asked his son at lunch.
“Not the school, just my friends,” he said as he ate peanut butter and crackers.
“What about the learning? Because I was thinking we have a lot of smart people living around us and I bet they’d like to share their smartness with you. What do you think?”
“I guess. There’s no choice.”
“You have a choice, I’m asking you.”
“I mean, there’s nothing else to do.”
“You’re right about that.”
“When do I go back?”
“Back?”
“To school, Dad!”
“Oh, um, tomorrow? That way you can enjoy your last day of summer vacation.”
“It’s not summer. It’s fall. You need to go back to school too, Dad.”
“All I meant was your last day of freedom. Anyway, I’ll be right back. I’m going to talk to the first of your new teachers.”
He’d heard Moira say that she’d raised three children. He hadn’t met any of them and so he didn’t know how they had turned out but, Moira was a kind enough woman. She also felt like his only good option.
He found Moira in the common room looking out the window at the dead.
“Looks like you need some distraction too,” he said.
“Oh! You startled me Rob!” Moira turned to him and he could see that she had been crying.
“Is something wrong, Moira?”
“I was just thinking about my family; how I might not see them again.” In her hand she held a photo but Rob didn’t recognize any of the faces.
“You can’t think that way! You have to hold on to a little bit of hope,” he said, hugging her.
“You said something about distraction? That is the only hope I have. It better not be drugs though, I don’t do those.” She tucked the photo back into a worn album and put it away with some other books.
“It’s not drugs,” Rob laughed. “Do you think, um, that you could spend some time with Gabe? Teach him something. He needs to focus on things other than zombies for at least part of a day.”
Moira sighed. The boy had a lot more energy than she had to match. “I don’t wake up very early and I could only keep up with him for about an hour.”
“That’s great! That’s fine. I can bring him over right after lunch tomorrow.” Rob hugged her and went back to his apartment before she could change her mind.
Another Stab in the Heart
The next morning Gabe was bouncing off the walls. He was excited to have somewhere to be and something to do. He picked his clothes out carefully and gulped down his oatmeal breakfast. He was
ready to go at nine.
“Moira is still sleeping, dude. You’ll have to wait a bit. Why don’t you go see if Molly is awake?”
“Ooooookaaaaayy.” Gabe left the apartment and went to find Molly. She was sitting in her living room reading a book and drinking coffee.
“What’s up, Gabe?”
“Nothing. Moira is going to teach me stuff but she’s old so she’s still sleepin’. Can I try that?” He pointed to her coffee.
“Hmm, I’m not sure if your dad would like that.”
“It’s fine, let him try it but he doesn’t need the sugar. He’s been a little hard to contain this morning,” Rob said as he invited himself into her apartment.
“Hi,” Molly said. “What are you doing here?” she asked, hoping it was to see her.
“Actually, I sent Gabe here to kill some time and then I remembered that Isobel offered to give him a haircut. Come on Gabe.”
“I like my hair. I don’t want a haircut,” Gabe protested as he plopped down onto Molly’s couch and grabbed her coffee cup.
“We don’t have a lot of time so let’s go get it done.”
“No!” He yelled, a few drops of coffee splashed over the edge of the mug.
Molly took the cup back from him. “Will you let me cut your hair?” she asked.
“Okay!” Gabe complied. He liked her way more than Isobel.
“Thanks Molly. You’re the best,” Rob said. “You be good for her!” He pointed a finger at his son and left.
Molly was disappointed. Rob wasn’t unfriendly or mean to her but she expected so much more from him. A kiss on the cheek wouldn’t hurt or a bit of company as she took scissors to his child’s head.
“We’ll do the haircut in the kitchen so your hair doesn’t get on the carpet.” She grabbed his hand and led him to a high stool.
“I want a Mohawk,” he said, picking up his hair in the middle of his head.
Molly laughed and entertained the idea. It would be a good way to make a statement to Rob to lighten up or it may just drive him further away from her.
When the Dead Page 15