The Zombies: Volumes One to Six Box Set

by Macaulay C. Hunter

  That was what it was going to take, enough people getting disgusted with having their lives disrupted to do something about it. VBC News had hired a reporter with Sombra C and put his face on the screen every day, shaking bare hands with his fellow reporters and everyone treating Raul Singer like the normal dude he was. The station was getting death threats daily, yet also commendations.

  Downtown was bustling, although not as crazily as on Friday when war was declared and everyone panicked. That had been pretty dumb, and Corbin wondered if those people were embarrassed now that it was Monday and the world was still turning. Rather than rush out and join the hysteria, Mom and Corbin had sat on the sofa and made an online order. When she had had cancer, they brought in a lot of their food through Munchies. It was healthy and local and fast and unbelievably expensive. Reactivating their account, they spent six hundred dollars on food. The car was three-quarters full of gas and Mom had plenty of cash on hand, so after clicking send, they just watched the craziness on television while resorting old pictures to free up a plastic bin. The extra non-perishables could be kept in that.

  “Oh, Cheesie,” Corbin said when Bleu Cheese lurched to a halt. He hadn’t been paying attention. The two were downtown outside the bakery, a CONGRATS GRADS sign in the window as an option for specialty cupcakes. The dog had wound herself through the bike rack and gotten trapped. She did it every time. Bending down, he undid her leash from the collar, commanded her sternly to sit, and unwound the leash.

  Her butt went up. “Sit!” After a processing pause, it went back down.

  The hallways had been full of screaming seniors waving acceptance letters. Well, not full, but there were a bunch of them. His parents had said when he asked that they weren’t embarrassed he wasn’t going off to a real college. Still, he wished that he could have amazed them like that, an acceptance to some great place. Some colleges had programs for dyslexic students, but he didn’t want those. A special major for special Corbin! That was bugging him today, ever since Ms. Schubert looked at him with so much fear and revulsion.

  Putting the leash back on, they walked. Bleu Cheese pranced along, enjoying the opportunities he granted to sniff posts and benches. When they got to the park, she unloaded an enormous, stinking crap in the grass. Excited to be free of her burden, the dog ran around in circles. Corbin was relieved, since it meant they could head back home. Dumping the loaded plastic bag in the trash, he crossed the street to walk down the other sidewalk. Despite his less than stellar mood, he brightened a little to think of those congratulations cupcakes. He’d gotten through. Dyslexic as hell and he’d gotten through anyway. This district set him up to fail and he was succeeding. Just one semester left and he’d walk on that stage for his diploma like everyone else, unless they were planning on a separate stage for Sombra C graduates.

  And he might have a job in the fall, sampling grapes up in Napa at harvest. The offer came out of the blue from a winery Dad knew well. The owner didn’t have Sombra C but his adult son did, and the son worked in the lab and wanted an assistant. Someone to collect the samples in the vineyards early in the morning and bring them in, mash up the grapes and strain the juice for testing. Pay was sixteen dollars an hour! Mr. Foods had paid nine. Corbin wouldn’t be able to take classes at the junior college in the fall, not with harvest running through October and sometimes November, but who cared? It was work, and that excited him. There was money in the wine business, and if this place liked him, they’d find a way to keep him around. Or at least call him back for next harvest. Since it was such a long drive from Cloudy Valley, he’d checked out a site for Sombra C real estate. Napa had some rooms for rent with owners who also had Sombra C.

  He’d save for a car. There was a Sombra C young adult group up in Sonoma, as well as some restaurants that refused to discriminate based on the virus. Big signs were on those doors, reading EVERYONE WELCOME. If someone was that worried about being infected, he or she could eat somewhere else. Sonoma was one of the best places in California for Sombra Cs and it had a huge new harbor with a Sanya Smart Shield going up for people who wanted extra protection. There wasn’t going to be a charge for it; a stamp was all it took to get inside. You’d at least get a tent, a sleeping bag, and food in there.

  A video on their local news showed a cop saying that Sonoma did have a Shepherd problem, yet the Shepherds in turn had problems with Sonoma law enforcement and the larger community who detested them. The whack-jobs were struggling to gain the same foothold that had come so easily in other places. While Shepherds protested outside the nearly completed harbor and the homes of Sombra Cs, a coalition of interfaith citizens protested outside the Shepherds’ homes and pissed them off. They also followed the Shepherds around on paces, singing hymns and touting signs that read GOD LOVES EVERYONE. EVEN SHEPHERDS.

  All of this was right by Napa. There would be girls in that young adult group, girls who wouldn’t look at Corbin like he was crawling with germs, and he’d have dough for those restaurants where everyone was welcome. But no more girls like Sally! He’d learned a lesson there. The thought of protesting outside a Shepherd’s home made him laugh. He would do that.

  Everything was looking up, so he shouldn’t get so bent out of shape about the student teacher. He was going to graduate and might have a job, make some new friends as his old ones split across the country to college, and she was always going to be a fool. Bleu Cheese lapped at a bowl of water left outside for dogs at Booksies and they continued on, trading the stores for stripes of residential blocks.

  His phone vibrated with a text from Micah. Goddamn, this office is like the Arctic. Austin is gassed and giggling in the dentist’s chair that he’s a vampire. A vampire zombie. He wants you to know how much he loves you. And everybody in the world. He promises not to turn us into vampires.

  I thought he was just getting a cleaning, Corbin answered.

  They give him nitrous since he has a fear of pointy objects in his mouth. I think Freud would have a field day with that.

  Corbin turned onto his block, listening to his phone read the message and laughing quietly. Micah was so weird. The errand was done and now he could get some snacks from the Munchies boxes and retreat to his room to mess around. He didn’t have much homework, or at least not much that was due the next day.

  People were yelling from farther down the block. The leash moved oddly around his wrist, Bleu Cheese having jumped from the curb to the road in the direction of the commotion. She was straining for something. Corbin looked up, intending to chide her, and staggered to a stop.

  An old station wagon and a squad car were parked in front of his house. Four people in tan Shepherd vests were on the lawn, shouting and struggling to hold on to something. A cop sat in the squad car and watched. Not something.

  Someone. The people on the lawn shifted and Corbin saw his mother between them. She looked up at the same moment as they knocked her to her knees. A terrified scream ripped up the block to him. “Corbin! Corbin, run! Run away!”

  He obeyed, spinning around and jerking the leash. A man shouted, “There he is! Get him!” A gunshot rang out as Corbin sprinted up the street back the way he had come. He didn’t turn (God help him, he did not turn to see if his mother had just been shot, he ran away like she told him) and he didn’t fall, so if the bullet was meant for him, it missed. Cars were coming but he dashed across the road with Bleu Cheese and let them honk and brake. At the curb they jumped up and ran down the walk, Corbin having no idea where to hide.

  A siren wailed and more brakes screeched. Veering into an alley between apartment buildings, Corbin charged up it. At the end was a split, the right going past garages and the left to a playground area and a driveway into a cul-de-sac. On the other side was a strip mall with a dollar store, dry cleaning, a bar, and an out-of-business gym. Only once had he ever set foot over here, having to come to it from the other direction to pick up some dry cleaning on an errand for his mother (oh God, they must have shot his mother in retaliation for warning h
im). A cop had been sitting right there and did nothing, a Shepherd cop who supported what they were doing and that meant Corbin couldn’t call 911!

  Reaching the split, he turned left to the playground and paused there to peek back. It was only a second before the hood of the squad car pulled up. The cop had seen him go down the alley. It was too narrow for cars and the door immediately opened. Corbin jerked away and ran for the cul-de-sac with the dog just in front of him. There were few cars in the parking lot. The woman behind the counter in the dry cleaning shop shouted, “No dogs!” when he yanked open the door and the bell jingled.

  He held out his hands in plea. “Please! Please, they are trying to kill me!” Ducking under the counter, he put up his hands again as the woman flinched to see him appear. Corbin glanced through the window to the parking lot. The cop and one of the Shepherds were running past the playground, their eyes set to the strip mall.

  Panicked, he pushed past clothes in plastic bags to the back room. Huge racks of tagged clothes were everywhere. Washing machines hummed. A second woman was back there, pressing the sleeves of a shirt. She looked up in surprise and fear to see him there, probably thinking he was a robber. Corbin shook his head and moved to the back door. He was just passing through, a boy and his dog, his stamp hidden by a scarf and no reason to panic.

  When he cracked open the door, he had to pull the dog back to keep her from flying out. The station wagon was there! Two Shepherds were getting out, a woman and a man, and both of them armed. The woman asked the driver, “Where’s the van?”

  “On Ketterman coming this way. Bag this one fast and toss him in. We need to get to Super Sleeper,” called the driver. The two outside the car looked over the building cursorily. The man split south, the woman north, and the driver remained in the car and craned his neck to look farther up the block.

  Corbin settled the door back, his mind racing. It could only be Brennan they meant, he and his mother staying at that hotel. Taking out his phone, he said into the text app, “Shepherds are coming for you. Hide.”

  The front door jingled.

  Should he grab some of the clothes from the racks and change? Wedge himself and the dog behind those huge machines? Those seemed like cartoon solutions. He sank into a rack of plastic-covered clothes to stay out of sight from the front. The woman who was pressing had returned to work nervously. A man said up at the counter, “Did you see a boy? Seventeen, Asian, about this tall? He has a dog.”

  “Shhhh,” Corbin hissed to Bleu Cheese, who wagged her tail.

  The woman at the counter answered the man in bewildered Spanish and he said, “A boy. Asian boy. With dog!” She repeated whatever it was that she had said before. She had sounded perfectly fluent in English when Corbin came in, so maybe she was playing dumb.

  A shadow fell on the floor, someone looking through the window only feet away from Corbin. He held his breath until it moved. The conversation went on in the front, circling nowhere.

  A car honked outside, followed by slamming doors. He heard the faint rumble of the station wagon moving away. They were going north to look for him. He’d go west to the downtown, hide somewhere and wait for night to fall . . . and then what? Were they blocking off the routes out of the city? That was a common tactic for Shepherds, pen in the zombies and chase them around until they were caught.

  The high school. He didn’t know what brought the high school to his mind, but he saw Mr. Tran locking the door at lunch to keep them safe for forty minutes. Their Sombra C didn’t bother him, since unlike almost everyone else, he knew the science and the risk, and deemed them minimal. Mrs. Ervin had Corbin sit at the handicapped table, but she accepted assignments out of his hand rather than make him email his answers.

  Letting himself out the back of the dry cleaning store, Corbin looked up the road. The station wagon was turning right. Mrs. Ervin was usually gone by four, but Mr. Tran stayed in his classroom until half-past, grading papers and setting up for the next day. If Corbin hurried, he’d make it there. Mr. Tran would let Corbin and Bleu Cheese hide in the classroom until nightfall, and help to figure out what to do.

  His phone rang. Jogging across the street, Corbin picked up and said, “Brennan, listen to me. Just listen. Shepherds are on their way to the hotel to pick you up. They’re trying to get me right now. Get the hell out of there!”

  “Is this a joke?” Brennan asked.

  “No! I swear this is no joke! Look outside for a station wagon, squad cars, they were talking about vans, too. People in tan vests and cops helping out! I wouldn’t even pack. Call the others, okay? Once you’re hidden? I’m out in the open, so I’m going to the high school to lay low. Get on your bike and split.”

  He should call Elania, Micah, Austin, Janie, all of them, but at the moment speed was imperative. Hanging up on Brennan, he jogged rapidly into the downtown. His heart hammered at a station wagon on the road, but it was a different color. Bleu Cheese tried to sniff at a bench outside Booksies and he jerked her along.

  Oh dear God, my mother is dead.

  He didn’t know that for sure. It was hard not to duck into an alley and call his father, but what could Dad do from Miami? Corbin only had himself. A little money in his wallet, his cell phone, and a stitch in his side. He wanted to pull off the scarf and let air circulate over his skin, but resisted the impulse. The sidewalks were full of people, some ambling along to look in windows, others striding with more purpose to certain stores. He weaved in and out of them. Someone cooed at the dog, but Corbin pressed on.

  Mr. Tran would hide him. They could check on Sombra C News to see if this was getting reported, find out if any routes out of Cloudy Valley were unguarded. Corbin wished that he had the minivan, but that was at home, at home where his mother even now might be lying dead on the front lawn. If only he had the car . . . had he been home when the Shepherds came, he still wouldn’t have it. He’d have been in his room playing Deadlock Five, oblivious with the noise of the game and easy pickings.

  If one of the routes was free, he could call his grandparents or his uncle and aunt to come and get him. But they all lived forty miles east of here, so it was going to take a while. Roads could close in that time. The second it was dark, Corbin was going to run for that road, run right out of this city, and hide in the night somewhere until a family member showed.

  Someone shouted to stop. Not knowing if the shout was meant for him, Corbin pulled into the parking lot for Aye-Aye, Captain. It was loaded with cars since the restaurant served discount dishes from three to six. Skirting around the building, he paused to catch his breath. It was another ten minutes to the high school. Ten minutes in which the others were in danger. Since he wasn’t visible from the main road, he stayed back there and took out his phone. “Shepherds are coming. They came to my house and I think . . . I think they shot my mom. The cops are working with them. Get out of Cloudy Valley. This is not a joke.”

  He pressed send on the text, hoping it transcribed accurately because he didn’t have the time to read it over. Cutting through the parking lot, he and Bleu Cheese turned north on a residential road. Kids were playing basketball in a driveway, their voices and the beats of the ball the only sounds.

  Keep north to Slinten and that would carry him west over to Ryland. Down the bike path and he’d come to the athletic field behind the high school. Corbin jogged, alert for traffic on the street. Feeling his scarf come loose, he moved the leash up his arm and adjusted it.

  Three blocks passed without trouble and he made Slinten. Bleu Cheese plugged on, her tongue lolling out of her mouth and leaving spots of drool on the sidewalk. Traffic was backed up for a short bus with flashing red lights. He headed by as a child in a wheelchair was lowered to the ground. The boy shouted to see the dog and Corbin swerved onto the lawn to stay out of the way. He crossed another street without traffic, everyone still waiting for the bus to finish unloading.

  When he rounded the corner to Ryland, the station wagon was there. He should have looked first, not just b
urst out, but he was so close to safety! Only one person was inside, the driver who spotted him at once. The station wagon lurched across the empty road as Corbin bolted over the street. A little girl was playing on a tire swing alone in a front yard over there. One block north, one lousy block north was all that separated him from the bike path and the athletic field, the classroom up the slope . . .

  “Stop or I’ll shoot!” The station wagon crested the curb and drove onto the sidewalk, Corbin pulling up sharply to not be struck. A gun was pointed at his chest. This wasn’t television. He couldn’t dive down faster than a bullet leave that barrel and the guy had a clear shot at his chest.

  Corbin backed away, his hands in the air. “Leave me alone!”

  “Throw over your phone. Three. Two.”

  Tossing it over fast, Corbin stepped back some more. The guy shook his head. “You’re going to come quietly. Get in the car.”

  “Why? Where are you taking me?”

  Leaving the engine going, the man got out of the car and stomped on the cell phone. “I’m not a spiller, kid, know what that means? I’m not going to spill your nasty blood on these streets unless I have no choice. But I’ll spill hers no problem if you don’t get in.” He aimed at the little girl. She was swinging unaware of them, her eyes closed and her head tilted back. The breeze filtered through her long brown hair.

  “You can’t do this! I haven’t done anything,” Corbin argued, praying that the kid’s parents would call her inside. Bleu Cheese hunkered down and growled, a rumble so low that it was nearly inaudible.

  “It’s not what you’ve done, it’s what you could do,” the guy said. He removed the safety and beckoned with the gun. Corbin moved forward unwillingly, knowing that as soon as he got into that station wagon, he was as good as dead. The guy pressed on an earpiece. “Got him. Send the van to Ryland and Warren; you guys go on to the Super Sleeper.”