“Too bad. I need someone to hold this table out of the way while two others gently ease him out,” Rob said.
“I’ll hold the table then,” Markus quickly volunteered. “That sounds like the cleanest job.”
“Someone should have a gun. In the event that something does crawl up through the opening he made,” Ben suggested. “I’ll grab mine.”
“Jeff, that leaves you and me to free him. Can you help me do that?” Rob asked.
Jeff had come out with Markus but was aimlessly wandering around, looking out the windows of the common area and picking food out of his teeth, disinterested in the goings on of the stairwell. “Huh?”
“Get over here and help please. You’ll support his shoulders while I lift what’s left of his legs,” Rob explained.
“Why do I have to hold the teeth end of his body?”
“He isn’t dead yet, Jeff.” Rob looked daggers at him.
“It could happen at any moment,” Jeff hypothesized.
“All the more reason we should get him out now!”
Ben had returned with his gun and a thick wool blanket to wrap Charlie in. “I’m ready when you are.” He tossed the blanket over the back of a chair and had his handgun trained on the hole in the debris, his finger positioned to quickly slide down onto the trigger.
“On three then. One. Two. Three!” Rob yelled.
Markus pulled the table up with all of his strength. Jeff and Rob grabbed the boy’s body and gently freed him from the barricade. Ben set his gun down for a second to spread the blanket across a couch in the common area. They placed the child on top of the blanket to inspect his wounds.
“There’s something crawling up the hole already!” Markus yelled as he dropped the table and ran for safety into Jeff’s apartment.
“Ben, get your gun back on that hole! Jeff, watch Charlie! I’m going to repack the barricade,” Rob directed.
Ben shot the zombie as its head appeared in the small hole. The shot made everyone jump. The pile of furniture in the stairwell was pulsing; moving up and down as though it had a heart beat. The hallway downstairs was filled to capacity with the dead and they were piling on one another trying to push their way through the blockade. Charlie’s living flesh and spilled blood had put a strong scent in the air around the stairwell. The sound of the bullet had only encouraged their pursuit.
Isobel ran to her apartment and dragged her couch out into the hall. Jeff left Charlie’s side to help her move it faster. Molly and Gabe came into the hall.
“Was that Charlie? Is he dead?” Gabe asked, looking around for answers.
Isobel was out of breath from pulling on the couch. All she could do was shake her head. Gabe squeezed past the couch and ran ahead to check on Charlie. Rob was busy repacking the debris for the tightest, most secure fit.
“What’s going on?” Molly asked.
“They’re trying to get through. The whole barricade is moving. We have to stop them. Grab something heavy.”
Once at the top of the stairs, Jeff and Isobel tipped the couch up onto its side and pushed it on top of the pile. Rob stood back to see if the weight was helping.
“A second couch should do it,” Molly suggested. “We can use Angela’s. It’s uncomfortable anyway and really heavy. It’ll take everyone to move it.”
Jeff returned to his apartment to check on Markus while Rob, Molly, Isobel and Ben walked quickly to Molly’s apartment for the couch, leaving Gabe alone to find out what had happened to his friend.
Gabe found Charlie on the couch as he breathed his last breath. The amount of infected saliva that had entered his body made for a quick turn upon death and a few seconds after dying, the boy stood up. Gabe couldn’t tell the difference.
“You should stay on the couch. Your leg doesn’t look so good. But don’t worry. My dad could probably fix it,” Gabe said as his friend stumbled toward him. He ran forward to help Charlie stay upright and to give him a hug. Gabe was incredibly happy that his new friend was free from the stairwell.
“You’re really cold Charlie. I can warm you up!” Gabe laughed and started rubbing the boys back briskly. “This is what my dad does if I’m cold.”
“Gabe, no!” Rob yelled as he and the others returned to the common area, a heavy couch in tow.
Charlie’s mouth was almost closed on Gabe’s neck. Rob dropped his corner of the couch and ran forward to tear his child from the beast’s arms. He pushed Charlie away with a force that made the boy’s head slam against the wall. It wasn’t enough to stop the zombie child. He stood back up.
Ben had dropped his corner of the couch as well and grabbed his gun. He shot without hesitation which didn’t leave Rob any time to cover Gabe’s eyes. Blood and brain hit the wall. Isobel and Molly had dropped the couch altogether, unable to hold up the massive piece on their own. They ran to Rob and Gabe.
Gabe cried hysterically, hitting his dad. “Why’d you guys do that to Charlie? He was gonna play with me!”
“He was a monster and daddy had to protect you from him. He was going to hurt you. I couldn’t let that happen,” Rob said as he took the beating from his son.
“I hate you. I hate you!” Gabe yelled as he pried himself from his father’s arms and ran down the hallway to his room. Rob stood in the common area staring at the spot on the wall where Charlie’s life had ended for good.
“Let’s get this couch on top of the other one first and then we can clean up this mess,” Ben said to Molly and Isobel, realizing they had little time at the moment to dwell on the emotional impact of what had just transpired.
“Can you help us finish the couch, Rob?” Molly asked the pale and shaken man gently, knowing the couch was too heavy for only three people. “Rob?”
“Sure,” Rob said, snapping out of the trance that had taken him. He picked the blanket up off the couch and tossed it over Charlie’s body, wiped the sweat from his palms and grabbed his corner of the couch once again.
Picking up the Pieces
Hayden hadn’t watched as Charlie was rescued or killed. She had heard the gunshot and waited to come downstairs, Vaughn in tow, to find out what had happened. It was an hour, maybe more, after she’d heard the gun when she stepped into the second floor common area. No one was in the living room and it looked quite different than it ever had to her.
“There’s more furniture on the barricade,” Vaughn noticed as he touched the couches, one after the other, shaking them to test their stability. “Do you think something tried to get through?”
“Something did.” Hayden pointed at the person-shaped blanket against the common room wall and the bloodstain above it. She could tell by its small size that it was a child and it brought her to tears.
“Why are you crying, you don’t even know who it was!” Vaughn said. He approached the blanket and kicked it roughly to make sure whoever it used to be was dead. Satisfied with its deadness when it didn’t move in response, Vaughn gripped a corner of the blanket and pulled it off.
“Whoa.”
There was little left of the child’s head. Hayden, unable to stomach the sight, ran back upstairs leaving Vaughn with the body.
“It was a little kid zombie,” Vaughn said to himself. “Tough little motherfuckers, those ones.”
He went to Isobel’s and knocked. She answered the door soon after. Her face was weary.
“So, were you going to do something with the half child out there under the blanket?”
“Yeah, we were getting to it. We needed some time to . . . decompress.”
“Well while you are decompressing, that thing is out there decomposing. Time to get rid of it. Put your big girl pants back on and help me.”
Isobel groaned and asked Ben to grab a sheet, some rubber gloves, spray cleaner and a few hand towels. When they got to the common room, Isobel remembered there was another body in the stairwell debris.
“We have to pull one out of the furniture there.” She said pointing through the stacked couches. “Quietly though; the
hallway downstairs is still probably full of them.”
“Can we put them in the same sheet?” Ben asked, hoping he wouldn’t have to go find another one.
“I don’t think they’ll mind.” Vaughn laughed.
By candlelight they gathered the bits of the boy into the linen. Isobel scrubbed the wall and carpet as best she could. Ben and Vaughn removed the couches and a few pieces of small furniture to uncover the other body. It took five sharp tugs to pull the large male out of the barricade. His body, not so recently turned, was covered in oozing pustules. As they pulled him onto the sheet, Isobel set to work cleaning the snail’s trail of pus he’d left behind. The smell of him was enough to drive Vaughn to vomit. He barfed on the body so they wouldn’t have to clean up more dirty carpet.
“Let’s wrap this up!” he said as he wiped his chin with the top of his forearm, laughing at the double meaning. He grabbed a side of the sheet and folded it over the bodies. Ben took the other side and placed it over the top of that.
“These windows don’t open,” Isobel said. “I didn’t notice that until now. I guess we’ll have to toss them from my balcony.”
Ben and Vaughn did just that while Isobel decided on the best way to sanitize her body. She was paranoid that the pus of the man had gotten on her, into her. She pulled off her shoes, socks, shirt and pants, leaving only her bra and panties on and she walked to the balcony. Ben and Vaughn stared at her as she threw her clothes off the edge and walked back inside.
“She should do dirty work more often,” Vaughn said.
Normally Ben would have been disgusted but he had seen her beautiful body as well.
“Yep,” he agreed.
A Rough Night
Selfishness
Three hours after the event, Gabe had fallen asleep from emotional exhaustion. He’d cried in his room for at least two of those hours before passing out. Rob sat in their living room in the dark, listening to his son the entire time, doing nothing but cry along with him. He was sick of feeling helpless, sick of watching his son’s rationality slip further away every day, still reeling from the thought that his son had nearly become one of them. He couldn’t think about Gabe anymore at that moment. He had to think of his own sanity, his own happiness. He left his apartment to find Molly.
A Difficult Decision
Moira’s hands were shaking as she held the weightless pill bottle in them. She had been taking medication for a heart condition for the last five years and it had kept her alive. She counted her pharmacist as a close friend and that friend had refilled her prescription just before the infection hit Northgate. It was only twenty or so pills and she had to take them twice a day. To make them last, she’d been taking doses of half a pill. After dinner, as she readied herself for bed, she opened the bottle and stared down at a lone half of a blue pill; all that was left and no way to get more, no way to even know if the pharmacist was still alive herself. Even if the pill monger lived, she would be unreachable as the pharmacy was across town some thirty blocks through heavily infected areas.
On the half doses she was able to stay active for the most part. Her appetite was sometimes weak but her humor was always at its peak. The forced rationing was slowly doing its damage inside her body; damage that no one could see. The doctor had warned her that her heart could stop at any time without the medication. Looking back, she should have asked for more pills or at least broken them into smaller pieces but, she hadn’t thought the world would be broken into so many tiny pieces of its own. She took the half dose with a swig of water. Edward can’t find out about this, she thought. He’d march outside and down the street to get more pills to keep his wife breathing, her heart beating; risking his own life in the process.
Moira climbed into bed and turned to her husband of over fifty years. “I love you Edward,” she said one last time before turning off the lamp on her bedside table but, her husband was already asleep.
Cold Feet
Markus lay awake. He was unable to stop thinking about the barricade. He’d watched as a corpse clawed its way toward him. It has to be better somewhere else. He thought to himself. He didn’t feel safe at Willow Brook anymore and Jeff was starting to get on his nerves. He had become clingy and the feeling was tenfold since they couldn’t leave the building. He rolled over and looked at Jeff in the dark. The moon was large outside so he could just make out his face and his furrowed brow. What is he dreaming about? Markus wondered as he reached out and gently rubbed Jeff’s forehead until it relaxed.
To The Point
Molly, contrary to what Rob was expecting, was not happy to see him.
“Do you know how many times I’ve needed someone and you weren’t there for me? And now this one traumatic experience has you running to my door?”
“Molly, I just need some sanity. Can we please forget about everything that is going on right now? We both need to relax.”
Molly knew she would give in to him eventually. She felt love for him even if she wasn’t in love. “Where’s your son?” she asked.
“Asleep. He’ll be out until morning. Can I please come in?” Rob begged her.
“You’re here for sex?” Molly asked directly.
“Yes,” Rob said so quietly it was barely audible.
Molly smiled. She’d been waiting to be with him for a long time and he looked cute in a messy-haired, broken down kind of way. She walked into the apartment, allowing him to follow her.
“I’m assuming Hayden’s not here,” Rob asked as he started towards Molly’s bedroom.
“She’s with Vaughn. She’s always with Vaughn,” Molly said, pulling her shirt off.
Promise or Prayer
Ben and Isobel too were having trouble finding sleep. It seemed the whole of Willow Brook, save for Edward and Gabe, was awake with thoughts of sex, death, love and leaving. Isobel had put on clean clothes and she sat cuddled in a heavy comforter in a chair in her living room, talking with Ben by candlelight.
“You look tired,” Ben said to her.
“I am, believe me. But I’m scared about what I’ll see in my dreams so I’m staying awake. You can go to sleep if you want. I’ll be quiet.” She reached out for the candle on the coffee table, ready to blow it out.
“No, leave it lit. Let’s talk for a while longer. Tell me, were you seeing anyone?” he asked her. “Before this?”
“I was seeing a guy but we only talked once every couple of weeks. I don’t think he would have tried to call me when things started happening. He has a cabin up in the Cascades. He’s probably there now; sitting by a fire, listening to owls and watching the stars come out. Not a care in his mind.”
“Is the cabin hard to get to?” Ben asked with genuine interest.
“I don’t know. He’d only ever told me about it. I never got a chance to go.”
“Damn,” Ben said and smacked his knee with an open palm.
“We aren’t going anywhere if that’s what you were getting at.” She shook her head. “In the movies, anytime the survivors try to travel, people die. Look at me, I sprained my ankle and I only went to the mall and back. We’d die before making it out of the city.”
“People are dying anyway!” Ben exclaimed as he gestured toward a wall of Isobel’s apartment, toward the common area where Charlie had been put down by Ben’s own gun, his own hands.
“No one else is going to die,” Isobel said in a much calmer voice than him, trying to convince herself as the words came out.
“That promise sounds suspiciously like a prayer,” Ben said.
The Best Way to Go
Moira lay there, thinking how happy she was to have lived a full life with the man next to her. They had raised three children and been through both tough and wonderful times alike. She prayed in the dark for one more day of life with him. But, at three in the morning, her body could no longer support itself. Her heart stopped as her doctor had promised and she died in her sleep. Most people would say that it’s the best way to go. But, as the dead were doing these d
ays she didn’t stay gone.
“Wha- What are you doing?” Edward awoke startled by the cold touch of his wife. It wasn’t like her to be so physical, especially late in the night. Something felt wrong to him; different in an unsettling way. Moira was being very rough and she was scrambling closer to him underneath the blankets. He reached for the chain of his bedside lamp and gave it a quick tug. The sudden brightness stole his vision for a moment and when it returned he was staring into the undead eyes and biting mouth of Moira. She had somehow died and come back without humor but with an appetite more voracious than ever.
“Oh, Moira. Not you, not us,” he sobbed. She had climbed on top of him, something she wouldn’t have asked her body to do in life at her age. He tried to hold her at a distance but his elderly arms lacked the strength to continue, especially when they didn’t have the support of his own heart. He had said he’d fight for his life. He just didn’t imagine he’d have to fight Moira for it. He wasn’t afraid to die. He was almost happy that it would be her that would end his life. She was moving in closer toward his neck, toward anything that she could consume.
He closed his eyes, prayed for the safety of their friends beyond the apartment walls, released his grip on her body and focused on the light scent of her perfume. It was the same perfume she was wearing on the day they first met.
A Rougher Day
Baby Blues
Hayden left Tom’s apartment after another sleepless, sex-filled night. It was still too early in the pregnancy for any of the noticeable body changes that would eventually expose her secret but she knew she’d have to tell him soon. She almost had, as they lay in bed the night before. Tom was always kind and gentle after he’d been satisfied but still she couldn’t find the courage.
When the Dead Page 20