When the Dead

by Michelle Kilmer

  He returned to the map to look for better possibilities. He had a friend in Greenlake, actually many friends, but one that he’d met in college and whose house was perched on a hill above the lake. The entire first floor of the house was a garage and the only two entrances were up narrow stairs that he felt certain could easily be blocked to keep the dead away. With a finger he traced a route. It would require him to double back to the freeway and travel along it for a few miles, leaving him exposed to the world.

  He folded the map and stowed it in his backpack, pulled himself from the floor and turned to climb back over the fence but more than thirty dead people waited for him on the other side.

  A for Effort

  Jeff was also underwhelmed with his performance. He had meant to make demands but when he was faced with so many people at the meeting he’d lost the nerve to go big. He looked outside to the falling rain and wondered about Markus. Was he staying dry? Had he made it any distance yet? Would he survive to find a better place? Jeff made himself stop the painful train of thought and focus on the next step on his journey. He had to gain the upper hand to control his own fate again.

  Normalcy

  Rob had been right about the change in Gabe. His interest in darker things had passed and he was returning to his smart and silly self. He witnessed more evidence of this as Gabe pulled his Legos out once again, creating an impassable, foot-injuring pile in the middle of the hallway of their apartment.

  “Who’s this guy?” Rob asked as he sat down on the carpet and chose a miniature figure with a red baseball cap on.

  “Just a regular guy. He sells bikes,” Gabe said, pointing to a crude shop he’d built. Two plastic bicycles sat inside the display window.

  “What about her?” Rob pointed to a lady figure on the street.

  “That’s his mom and she’s bringing him lunch.”

  Rob smiled because he hadn’t heard the word zombie once. He did hear Gabe’s stomach growl and he knew he needed his own lunch.

  “What do you say we eat something and if the rain stops we haul your bike up to the roof and ride around?”

  “Yippee!” Gabe jumped to his feet.

  “But you have to pick up your toys first, remember?”

  “Will you help?” Gabe asked pleadingly.

  “Absolutely, I will.”

  Tunnel Vision

  “You can do it, Markus! You can either climb the fence or walk into the dark, scary tunnel armed with nothing but a bat and a mini flashlight.” Markus was having difficulty deciding which would be worse and any pep talk he gave himself to bring him over the chain link was unsuccessful. He turned back toward the darkness, shone the small beam of light into it and forced his feet to move him forward under the mall.

  He had never spent much time at the mall before the trouble started so he could not estimate its length with confidence but he did know it was extremely long and that the tunnel would be equal to its length. His journey was slow as he took the time to shine the flashlight on every inch of both of the side walls, the floor and the high ceiling before pressing on to the next section. He’d never seen rats in Northgate, maybe not even in Seattle, but he knew they were there and he swore every time he heard the tiny feet running across his path, somehow avoiding the beam of the flashlight. There were many doors and shipping platforms, each identical to the next but for a small label with the names of the individual stores printed on them. He considered trying a few of the doors to see if they were unlocked but he didn’t fancy climbing through a burned out landscape. He was wet but he was still clean and he wanted that to last.

  A half hour passed and he could see the light of the other end. He felt no elation at making it through the underground passage because from where he stood he could easily see that a vehicle had driven through the fence. It had not happened recently, he knew, because he couldn’t hear an engine or voices and he smelled no exhaust. The crashed vehicle, a Jeep of some kind, sat still and empty. A door was left open on the passenger side. Half of its body jutted out into the light. The other half was eaten by the darkness.

  “Hello?” Markus yelled. He could hear the trepidation in his voice. “I’m not here to hurt you.” He added just in case someone was hiding inside of it where he couldn’t see them.

  From the darkness a noise began to grow. It started first as a whisper and then rose to become noisier than a mob. No words were spoken, only moans emitted. He could feel a presence there in the dark, coming closer to him. He knew it was them and that he would never reach the light at the end.

  Mind Games

  Hayden felt lighter on her feet – even with the occasional nausea from her pregnancy – because Vaughn knew that she’d shared a bed with Ben and he seemed to be alright with the fact. She was back in the Cooper’s apartment, her apartment now, and reading through a book that Jill Cooper had purchased in expectation of her child called What to Expect When You’re Expecting. It was a long book and some of the information scared her but she knew that nine months would fly by. She needed the book, even the scary parts, to prepare for motherhood.

  Maybe he didn’t knock or maybe she was too absorbed in her reading; suddenly Vaughn was in the living room with her. He pulled the book from her hands, threw it across the room, grabbed her and pulled her into the nursery which he mistook for the bedroom. As soon as he saw the baby stuff, which turned him off, he pulled her back into the living room and pushed her onto the couch.

  “What are you doing here?” Hayden yelled at him, trying to push him away but he was too strong.

  “I was just curious what a guy like Ben could do for you that I can’t,” Vaughn answered as he opened his pants and took off hers.

  It was immature of Hayden to think that he would ignore her having cheated on him. “A lot,” was all she could cry out as Vaughn forced his way into her.

  “I’m more of a man than he is and you know it. I fill you up. He probably has extra room.” Vaughn finished quickly, due to his excitement over the tension during the meeting and to the frightened look on Hayden’s face. She didn’t have the energy to yell at him, defend her or Ben’s actions, or to tell him about the baby. She redressed herself without looking at Vaughn.

  Ben came in as Vaughn was zipping up his pants. “She’s all yours,” Vaughn said to him as they passed in the entry of the apartment.

  Disorder

  If Markus can leave, I can leave. I’ve been out there before. I know what it takes to survive, Molly thought. She’d taken stock of her food and even gone to take an extra ration from the third floor but it still wasn’t enough. It would only last her a few days with her new plan to stop fighting the bulimia. She was going to check the houses near the hospital. Someone over there had killed the people in the street. That someone had to have food if they were still alive.

  She left as the sun was going down, hoping she wouldn’t run into Vaughn. If he found her alone no one would be there to rescue her. There were few dead on the street in front of Willow Brook and she attributed it to the fact that last night and today Markus had been making his presence known to them, drawing them away from the building and toward wherever he was running to.

  It took some nerve for her to walk by the cemetery. It was large, covering over 144 acres, and she had seen movies where the dead had clawed their way out of their graves. She looked through a hole in the hedge that surrounded it and saw that save for a few vandalized headstones, the grounds were undisturbed. Maybe Rob was right about the infection. People caught it when they were alive and then when they died, whether from a super-infected bite or natural cause, it took over. The people in the cemetery died before they could catch it, whatever it was. They were still at peace. Molly did notice some undead wandering through the burial grounds but they hadn’t been buried, she could see the wounds.

  She made it to the vehicles she’d seen from the roof. All of them empty of people but still holding personal belongings; none of them loaded with anything edible unless moldy coffee and sandwiches
were suddenly safe to consume. As she moved among the cars she stayed low to the ground. She still was unsure whether or not there was anyone alive in the houses she was about to break into. They could be watching me, training their guns on my head, she thought. It was at that moment, when she was thinking of being killed, that she realized she hadn’t brought a weapon with her, only a flashlight and an empty bag to carry food.

  “It’s too late to go back home,” a voice said behind her. A man, looking close to sixty in age and pointing a shotgun at her, walked into the street. “What’cha looking for anyway?”

  “Um . . .” was all she could get out on her first attempt to speak.

  “Nothing but a bunch of dead folk out here and I know you aren’t looking for them.” He smiled, exposing his yellowed teeth.

  “Food,” she managed to say. Her body was jittery with nerves. Who was this man and why hadn’t he shot her yet?

  “Well you don’t look hungry but I’ve got plenty of it. If you come inside I’ll share some with you.”

  It would have been a nice offer if he wasn’t still pointing the shotgun at her. The polished wood of the stock and the flawless barrel told her that the man spent hours keeping it clean. He had it low, against one of his hips, and he held it comfortably, like an old friend. She knew she couldn’t refuse his offer or she would end up lying on the street amongst the other bodies.

  He moved the shotgun to signal her to walk in front of him, like a captive. He led her to a gated home just up the road. She assumed it was his house but he could have taken it from someone else. It was made of brick and had two levels. It looked like an old English house; with its small windows and steep roof. Inside it lacked the benefits of natural light and the man quickly went room to room lighting candles. It smelled like mothballs, which made Molly want to gag. She was about to make a run for it when the man came back into the foyer.

  “The food is this way.” He gestured to his right. She followed him through a library and into a formal dining room. The table top was covered with canned food. A smile crept across her face. She opened her bag and started dumping food into it. When it was full she made toward the front door. The man was in front of her with his shotgun before she knew it.

  “Not even a thank you? Can’t you stay awhile?” he asked, blocking the only exit she knew of. “I’ve been rather lonely.”

  “No, I really can’t. I have to get back to my family,” she lied, hoping that he had a compassionate bone in his body that wouldn’t kill a mother or that he might think they’d come looking for her if she didn’t turn up.

  “The food isn’t free,” the man said, again showing his yellow teeth in a grin. He took one hand off of the shotgun and started to undo his pants.

  Exit Stage Left

  Markus was not ready to die. He wanted to run for the Jeep in the distance but he’d have to run through the dead and he couldn’t tell how large the group was. The vehicle was also abandoned and that surely meant it was in some way unusable, out of gas or damaged from the crash. He pulled himself up on to one of the raised cement platforms. From there he felt he might be able to fight off a few of them instead of the horde that was approaching down the road of the tunnel. Hugging the wall he moved toward the noise; he would not return to the fence on the other side for he knew the dead awaited him there. Using the darkness to his advantage he made it another thirty feet before the platform ended and he was forced to climb down.

  He could smell them now and that meant they were closer, by how much he wasn’t sure but he knew he had to get out of the tunnel as fast as possible. Markus walked with the bat parallel in front of him as a barrier. With his fingertips he felt in the darkness for the start of another platform. He reached the cool surface of one and he began to pull himself up. A hand, so cold he could feel it through his pants, grabbed his right ankle. A sharp tug nearly brought him back to the ground but he kicked and fought with such energy brought on by sheer terror that he managed to break free. Safely on top of the platform he made for the first door he could feel. Locked. He continued on but each door was locked like the first.

  Ahead of him he could see that some of the zombies had made it onto the next platform. They were everywhere now and he had only one more door on the zombie-free platform to try. To his surprise, the door pushed open easily and he stumbled inside. He was in a room full of shipping boxes and he was able to pull some of the heavier ones in front of the door to block it from opening again. The smell of burned materials was strong and he was unsure where the room would let out but he had to move forward, there was nothing but death behind him. He stopped to catch his breath and gather his thoughts. Escaping the dead had filled him with new energy to press on.

  He could see an open door on the other side of the room and he ran for it. The moment he made it through the door a piercing, sharp pain erupted in his stomach. He dropped the bat and his hands went to hold the pain but they found what felt like a kitchen knife stuck into his belly. Blood poured from the wound and he sank to his knees.

  “I found this place! You can’t have it! Go away! Go away!” a man yelled at him in the darkness.

  “I . . .” Markus started to speak but found it difficult. He couldn’t see the source of the voice but he could smell it. Urine and old food, dirty feet and body odor.

  “Go away! Go away! Go away.” The man kept yelling over and over. Markus wanted to explain that he was only passing through but no words came, only blood. He wondered if he would die and come back, he wondered if Jeff had come looking for him, he thought of his friends that he’d never see again. Markus lay down on his side as he listened to the lunatic’s lullaby and the sound of undead hands hitting the door in the other room. He lost consciousness and bled to death.

  Molly Fights Back

  “I’m not a whore!” Molly yelled and backed away.

  “We all have needs, lady. I was only suggesting we barter with them. All the food you want for just a little companionship.”

  “I’m done with ‘companionship’,” Molly said with disgust.

  “I wasn’t giving you a choice,” he said as he backed her all the way into the dining room, pushing her up against the dining table. He kissed her neck and chest, making her squirm. Just like the house his breath smelled like mothballs, like he’d eaten them and she was gagging uncontrollably now. Her hands searched behind her for the heaviest jar of food she could find. She brought the jar down hard on his head once, twice, a third time before the glass broke and cut into his skin. He fell to the ground, covered in pickle juice. The smell wafted up into her nostrils and filled the room, an improvement on the mothballs. Molly was not sure if he was already dead, just unconscious or if he might bleed to death so she moved with purpose. Pulling up the corners of the tablecloth and bringing them together in a knot over the food, she hefted it off the table. She dragged the load out of the front door, along with her previously loaded food bag, into the darkening evening. Still the dead were spread out near Willow Brook and it was easy for her to make it back to the building.

  She managed to climb her fire escape, pushed onward by the adrenaline coursing through her. The moment she made it safely into her apartment she burst into tears. She cried for at least twenty minutes as she scrubbed her skin raw where his mothballed mouth had touched her.

  Was he my first kill? Molly thought with horror. She didn’t’ want to be a murderer but she’d no other option. She’d killed to survive.

  Liars Not Welcome

  Rob wasn’t expecting much in the way of forgiveness from Molly. He didn’t want to spend the rest of his life, however long or short that may be, knowing he hadn’t tried to mend things between them. He knocked on the door of 204 and waited.

  “Go away Isobel!” Molly yelled from within. Isobel was the only person she thought had the nerve to still come visit her. She didn’t even check the peephole.

  “It’s Rob. Can we talk?” he asked as he pressed his ear to the door to discern what she might be doing inside.


  “That’s even worse. No, we can’t talk. I’m busy,” Molly said, and she was. Finally feeling like herself again after all the scrubbing, she had started to sort the food she’d found.

  “What can you possibly be busy with?” Rob asked, annoyed that she was avoiding him.

  Molly stood up from her place on the floor and went to the door. She opened it a crack, leaving the chain in place. “I’m eating dinner and then I’m going to bed.”

  “It’s so good to see you,” Rob smiled.

  “So now that I want nothing to do with you I have become irresistible? Maybe Hayden wants some company or have you already been in her bed?”

  “I haven’t touched that girl, nor do I want to.”

  “Well maybe it’s time to start because you aren’t sleeping with me anymore,” Molly said and then closed the door.

  “Molly!” Rob yelled. “Molly, open up!”

  “She needs time, Rob. Leave her alone,” Isobel said softly. “Besides, it’s too late to be yelling in the hall.”

  Botched

  Molly gorged herself that night. Twenty cans of food later she was feeling full but disgusted. Everything she’d learned in her group therapy came flooding into her mind. How she was beautiful, worth more than this, and damaging her body if she continued. She looked down at the empty cans, some of which were badly dented, some even expired, and she became convinced that she’d done something very wrong. She was in the kitchen then, digging under the sink for a garbage bag. She shoved a finger in her throat but nothing came up. She’d had problems vomiting before treatment but she was able to do it just weeks ago, why not now?