On Our Own

by Silver, L. D.

  It’s kind of exhilarating to be running free in broad daylight. It feels normal, like maybe I took something from a store and we’re fleeing from the cops, with the only difference being Cassie’s by my side instead of my friend Tonya. (Okay, it was only that once; I’m not a big thief or anything.)

  I look back over my shoulder and Cassie’s still there, although a bit behind and breathing hard. I slow down. She catches up and we walk for a few blocks until she’s fine again.

  “We’re going to have to turn left up there.” I nod in that direction. “Are you ready to run again?”

  She holds her hand to her side, but she agrees.

  “Okay.” I grin and set off. I’m in that zone where you feel like you can run forever. Just a few more steps and I’ll take off in flight.

  I turn the corner and collide with a zombie, a male with dried blood caked on its hands and shirt. I scream without meaning to. The creature’s open mouth heads for my neck while its hands grab me. Something thicker than blood oozes onto my skin. I scream again, pushing backwards with everything I have.

  Something hits me from behind, sending me into the zombie’s arms, and both of us fall to the ground. The zombie thrashes, a weird honking sound coming from it. I can feel parts of its skin sliding off beneath me.

  I can’t move. I can’t get my body to respond!

  Finally, something clicks in me and I grab the zombie’s arms. I get enough leverage to kick it in the stomach, getting it off me for a few precious seconds. I gain my feet and kick the empty-head again. I’ve lost my bat.

  I hear a sound behind me and remember something had slammed into us. I turn around, my heart pounding in my chest. Cassie’s getting to her feet behind me and I realize she was what sent me flying.

  “Delilah!” she screams, pointing behind me.

  The empty-head’s getting up again. It’s moving so slowly, but Cassie seems afraid. I kick it in the head, getting that blackish goo all over my tennis shoe. Then I see my bat and grab it. I have the forethought to say, “Don’t look,” and bash the zombie’s head until it stops moving.

  I lower the bat to my side and the world returns to its normal speed. I draw great gulps of air into my lungs, amazed at the bright colors around me. Then I realize something.

  “They will have heard us scream.”

  Chapter 3

  Cassie’s eyes widen. We flee.

  We get maybe a block away before the zombies reach the alleys. With slow, lumbering steps they fill the brick hallways. I dodge between them, running as fast as I can without losing Cassie. She starts to breathe hard again and I know I have to do something.

  I race ahead a bit and stop. I swing the bat, going from one zombie to the next until I clear a small circle. Then I smash the window of a door nearby, reach through and open the door. Cassie runs up as I bang the bat against a dumpster, making as much noise as I can. She joins in with her plunger handle.

  We walk away and stand against the brick wall. I pant like a dog, trying to catch my breath, wondering if they’ll fall for it. The first empty-head is an overweight woman with limp blonde hair. Her cracked eyes look like marbles that were slammed into concrete. She shuffles through the open door without noticing us.

  I can’t believe it. Cassie’s right; they can be fooled. I watch with relief as one by one the zombies turn and follow each other into the dark building, their empty eyes failing to scan the area and spot us.

  “You’re a genius,” I whisper to Cassie. She grins, and we run again.

  Forty minutes later, we’re on a small grassy hill above the mall parking lot. We’re on the back side where there’s only a Dillard’s and a Sears. The brown brick of the mall looks a bit outdated, but the inside is still chock full of stores.

  “I can’t believe the distraction worked.”

  “Told ya.” Cassie smiles. “They’re not very bright.”

  “Thank God for that.”

  I stretch out onto my stomach and consider the situation below us. Apparently, we aren’t the only ones to think of going to the mall. There are still cars in the parking lot. Bodies that aren’t going to get up again litter the lot and bodies that won’t stay down walk among them.

  As we watch, a zombie male in a plaid shirt and blue jeans stumbles over one of the bodies. He falls to his hands and knees. He sniffs the air and turns towards the body, then grabs an arm and pulls. The arm comes off easily, fluids dripping wetly to the ground.

  “Ewww,” says Cassie.

  He tears into it, eyes closed as if he’s eating the finest steak ever. Then suddenly he drops the arm and throws up. He sniffs the vomit, licks it, and starts eating it. He finishes the vomit and then picks up the arm again, eats, and throws up.

  “Really stupid,” Cassie adds. I watch him for a while, unable to look away in spite of myself before Cassie asks, “Why is he throwing up?”

  “I don’t know,” I answer. “Maybe it’s gone bad?” I don’t know how the dead would spoil for something that liked eating them, but what the hey? Then I realize I’ve always seen the zombies eating live people. Maybe they need their meat really fresh. Oh, I can’t believe I just thought that.

  One of the fast ones comes running toward the flannel zombie.

  I nudge Cassie. “See, some of them are faster.”

  “That’s not fair,” she says.

  “What’s he doing?”

  The fast zombie moans, hands outstretched as it crashes into the other one. The fast one pushes Flannel away from the body and takes a big bite out of the corpse’s neck. It chews a couple of times then spits out the pieces. I swear it looks at Flannel in disgust. Then the empty-head just wanders away.

  “Fuck, the fast ones are smarter, too,” I say.

  “You said the F-word,” Cassie says with awe in her voice.

  “Say it all the time.” I shrug. I’m lying of course. I’ve only cursed once before, but it seems really appropriate now.

  “So, how are we going to get in?” Cassie asks.

  “Through there.” I point to Dillard’s.

  “Won’t they just follow us in?”

  “It’s why I picked that store. See that last part of glass next to the door, the small part that’s closed in?” On either side of the doors the glass is partitioned, separated by metal into three rectangles. “We’ll break into the small part and crawl in. Then we'll block the hole.”

  “Cool. Are we just going to run through all of them?”

  I look at the scene below. There are easily a hundred zombies down there, and that’s just the area directly in front of us. Getting through them will be okay, but I wonder how many the sound of breaking glass will bring. I don’t want to use another door to a store nearby as a distraction because that will just get them in the mall, which I want to avoid.

  Before I met Cassie, I survived by pure luck, like coming across the unlocked door at the convenience store. But she’s given me a tool that’s worked and I want to use it here. I think a moment more and then tell Cassie my plan.

  Chapter 4

  Twenty minutes later, we’re in place. Cassie stands in front of the partitioned glass at the Dillard’s entrance, and I’m about a block and a half away next to an abandoned car. I nod at Cassie and she returns the gesture.

  I slam my bat against the car’s window, shouting at the same time. The glass breaks and I run to the next car. I shatter that car’s back window and run on to the next one while yelling. The idea is to make as much noise as possible and hopefully confuse the zombies about where I’m standing. Yes, it’s really stupid and I can’t believe I’m doing this, but it’s this or go back to the convenience store and hide.

  “It won’t break! It won’t break!” Cassie shouts. I glance over my shoulder and see the plunger handle is useless against the glass storefront.

  The zombies that were standing around before are now heading toward me. I can already see a few coming around the corner of the mall, as well. Thanks to the various cars I’m smashing they’re
scattered, but there are still a lot of them. A few heads turn to look at Cassie and then some zombies shuffle her way.

  “Watch out!” I shout. I need to help her, but how? I look around and get an idea. Keeping my eyes on the dead, I open my mouth and moan; a loud, long moan as close to theirs as I can get. I do it again. Zombie heads turn one after the other, following the sound and creating a neat little wave pattern. I cry again, louder. They come toward me.

  “Cassie,” I hiss in a low tone, and throw the bat at her. I continue to moan as she bashes the glass in. I make the next one louder, throwing my head back and drawing the zombies to me.

  “Delilah!” Cassie is on her hands and knees in the store, poking her head out of the glass opening. I moan a few more times while running around a car. Then I grab an arm that’s disconnected from a nearby body. Grimacing in disgust, I run straight toward the zombies near the door. Right before I reach them, I cry again and throw the arm into the middle of the group. They turn as one to grab it.

  I slam to the ground. Cassie’s kicked the broken glass out of the way, so I’m able to crawl quickly into the store. The zombies are still fighting over the arm and don’t notice.

  Cassie’s staring at me, her mouth wide open. “That was freaky! You sounded just like them!”

  I grin and crawl further into the store. Then I jump to my feet, run to a nearby display, and push a mannequin over. I take the box it was standing on and put it in front of the hole we made.

  “There. Good as new,” I say. Then I realize the bat is on the other side of the glass. “Crap.”

  “What?” Cassie asks. I just point at it. Our strongest weapon is out of reach. A few of the zombies give up on getting the arm.

  “Should we go get it?”

  I slowly shake my head, watching the dead. Will they come to the glass?

  “No, we leave it there.” I put an arm against her chest and start backing up very slowly. A zombie head pops up and looks through the glass, attracted by the movement.

  “Crap, crap, crap,” I mutter under my breath. We keep retreating even as the thing advances. It’s a male with short blonde hair and cracked blue eyes. Dried blood covers a white dress shirt and flows over gray pants and brown dress shoes.

  It hits the door and stops. I hold my breath as it clinks against the glass. I watch the box, hoping it won’t move. The zombie bumps into the glass again, and this time I can see what’s causing the ‘clinking’ noise: it’s still wearing a pocket watch on a chain that’s swinging free. Could that break the glass? How much force would be necessary? Surely it won’t be enough for the zombie to realize it might be able to break more glass and come in.

  Then another empty-head hits the male from behind. The Watch zombie turns to the second one, and they do this weird bumper car thing until they both seem confused and bump each other into different directions. I let out my breath.

  “Let’s go,” I say.

  Chapter 5

  Cassie and I walk into a memory of our old lives. I’m used to this place being brightly lit, with boring old-people music playing in the background and the floors shining. I remember the last time I was here. I was with my mom and I dragged her through every good store in this mall, asking for everything along the way. At the end, we’d stopped and had warm cinnamon rolls.

  Now, as I walk through the store, there is no music. The floors are dull. And the further we go into the store, the darker it gets. As the light fades, each mannequin becomes a zombie, waiting in the darkness for me to get close enough to eat.

  “Delilah.” Cassie grabs my arm and stops. I jump and let out a little squeak.

  We’re at the edge of the light. I imagine that, when things first went downhill, the store was lit for a while by emergency lights over the doors, but those are no longer working.

  I reach into my pocket and pull out a lighter I’d grabbed at the convenience store. I push down on the little silver wheel and a flame springs to life. I hold it in front of us and try not to burn my hand.

  “Okay?”

  She nods. “But let’s find some flashlights.”

  “There won’t be any in here.”

  Unfortunately, Dillard’s doesn’t carry flashlights. At least, all I remember of the store is clothing, shoes and makeup. Oh, and purses.

  “I know. Just soon, okay.”

  “Okay.”

  I walk down the dark, quiet aisles with Cassie beside me. It’s creepy, really. I keep getting small flashes of what it was like before. And I keep expecting a zombie to come moaning out of the dark, hands stretching in front of it.

  We finally hit the clothing area and I have an idea. I push a mannequin to the floor then kick until I get both of the arms off. What is it with me and arms today? Anyway, I grab a shirt off a nearby rack, wrap it around the mannequin’s hand and light it on fire.

  “Careful.” I give the torch to Cassie. She looks at me like I’m off my rocker, but she takes it. I grab the other arm and create one for myself.

  Now that we both have torches, the area is lit a bit more. I can see the entire aisle and some of the items around us. We walk past the shoes (without stopping!) and get close to the front. I grab some more shirts from the racks and hand a few to Cassie so we can swap them out as they burn.

  I reach the front of the store and the black open maw of the mall. In my mind, I can still hear a bit of the music. God, if I could only have that back: music playing, girls walking around in pairs giggling, little kids eating ice cream and letting it fall on the floor. But that’s not going to happen.

  “Delilah, what if some of the zombies get through?” She brings me back to the present.

  “Good point,” I respond.

  I notice the silver gate at the edge of the department store’s opening. I hand Cassie my torch and grab the edge. I pull once and it doesn’t move, so I brace my feet and pull harder. The gate comes free and Cassie giggles. I glare at her and pull it across. I shut it, but there’s no way I can lock it. It will have to do.

  I take my light back from Cassie. It’s almost burnt out, so I go ahead and blow it out, tearing off what’s left and tossing it to the floor. I wrap another shirt, light it on fire, and do the same for Cassie.

  “We need to find flashlights fast.”

  I nod. “We’re not that far from the sporting goods store.”

  “’Kay.”

  The mall is darker than the world at night. In my head, I can see zombies coming out of every little turn. They’ll wait, of course, until it’s too late for us to turn back and then ambush us.

  I shake my head and take a deep breath. I remind myself that it was my idea to come here and that it was a good one. There are things we need. We have to do this.

  Then I notice Cassie is skipping ahead of me into the darkness, without a care in the world.

  Maybe she’s stupid. No, I know that’s not it. Shaking my head, I hustle to catch up with her.

  The hallway of the mall is wide enough to fit two cars going each way. The floor is leftover from the eighties and is a light brown tile. We pass a Bath and Body Works – smelly and closed for good – as well as a Gap. And a Gap Kids.

  We turn right when we reach the point where the hallway meets the main thoroughfare of the mall. I keep expecting zombies to jump out of nowhere, but so far there’s nothing. Did no one go shopping right before the world ended?

  After this stretch, there will be a wide open space used for fashion shows and holiday events, like Santa Claus, and then the sporting goods store will be at the end of the hallway after that.

  We aren’t too far from the wide open space when the stench reaches us.

  Cassie coughs and puts her hand over her nose. “What’s that?”

  I gag. “Shhhhh.”

  I guide Cassie away from the middle of the mall over to the edge. I don’t like being so close to the alcoves some of the store openings have, but I think I know what’s up ahead. My heart’s pounding so loud I’m sure Cassie can hear it.

&
nbsp; We reach the wide open space and I stop. The area’s basically a huge circle in the middle of two intersecting hallways. I raise my torch high and confirm my suspicions.

  Bodies are scattered in the circle. Some of them hold hands. Some of them lay alone. Some of them are wrapped around each other.

  Cassie gasps. I forgot to hide it from her. I push her back against the store behind me.

  “What happened?” she breathes.

  “You hadn’t heard?”

  Cassie shakes her head, her eyes wide. It reminds me of how young she is. Somebody must have protected her.

  “They’re called Suicide Groups. The idea was that you couldn’t come back as a zombie if your head was cut off. So, people formed groups and made pacts. One person would cut off everyone’s head.” My eyes drift from paper cups still clutched in lifeless hands to headless bodies.

  “And what happens to that one person?”

  “If the cops didn’t get there first, that person was supposed to blow their head off with a gun.” I scan the group, moving my eyes quickly to a man slumped in a chair like an exhausted king of the dead. His hand still grips a handgun, and his head is still attached, although I glance away quickly from the bloody mess it’s become.

  “Wow,” Cassie says.

  I realize she’s moved to stand beside me and isn’t screaming or acting hysterical. “You’re not afraid, are you?”

  Cassie looks at me like I’m an idiot and rolls her eyes. “Really?”

  And I get her point. Yes, she’s had to dodge dead people all day, the most being in the parking lot. These people creep me out because their heads are detached. Ewww. It’s not right. But when it comes down to it, when the dead can walk and eat you alive, how scary is a non-walking group of dead people anyway?

  Chapter 6

  I find Cassie’s hand and drag us both away. We find the sporting goods store without incident and stock up on weapons, flashlights and two sleeping bags. Then, finally, we go to where I’d planned on going the whole time.