On Our Own

by Silver, L. D.

  #

  “But I don’t understand why you want to leave.” Cassie munches on a scrambled egg sandwich. “We’re in a great spot. We’re safe, we have food, and –” she grins, “we have electricity.”

  “You’re right. It’s a good place. For a while. And then we’ll have to leave again. Go out and get supplies. How long do you want to live in a metal box?”

  “It’s not safe anywhere.” She shrugs.

  “I want out of here, Cassie. I want to go someplace where I have no memories.” That serious look hits her face again as she bites into her sandwich.

  “Like where?”

  I grab a couple of folded brochures from my backpack and smooth them out. The creases in them are so old the paper nearly tears in half. “Colorado. The Rocky Mountains.”

  “Ever been there?” she asks.

  “Yes.” A long time ago, before my family fell apart, the four of us took a trip up there in the summer. We drove through the mountains and some of the communities, with my Dad talking about buying a house. It was the last time I remembered us laughing together, talking and having a really good time.

  “It’s really beautiful up there. Look.” I show her the skiing brochure. “There are isolated communities and cabins. I think we could find a safe area.”

  “What about finding adults, a somebody?” Cassie frowns.

  “If we find anyone on the way, we can stop. If we don’t, we can build a base of operations and look for adults.”

  “We could build a base here.”

  “That’s true, we could. But I don’t want to walk around this mall waiting for my mom to pop out around the corner. I’m not just talking about ghosts, Cassie. What if we come across someone you knew, one of your friends, and they’re a zombie? What if we have to kill that person to survive?”

  She blanches. “Okay,” she agrees in a small voice.

  I feel like a jerk. My mom would have rubbed her arm, or hugged her and told her it would be okay, but my arms feel locked to my side.

  Cassie pulls her knees up to her chest and then reaches around them to turn the brochures over. She’s silent for a while, biting her lip. Then her face smoothes over and she sighs.

  “Okay, let’s do it.” She looks at me and smiles. It’s at that point I realize I’ve talked her into risking her life. If she dies doing this, it will be my fault.

  Chapter 11

  We get supplies for our trip, and then we go through and weed things out so we can actually go somewhere. We get Cassie a gun, and even though I have one, too, I just feel squirrelly inside about getting a gun for a kid. This isn’t right; she should be popping bubble gum and playing with Barbies, not handling a weapon. It looks big and heavy in her hand, and I don’t like the look in her eyes when she holds it.

  I push the feelings down and finish packing. We’re going with bikes for now because I’ve only kind of driven once, and I can’t imagine trying to drive out of town anyway. Everything’s got to be blocked, right? But bikes can make it through almost anywhere. As we head out, I take one last look at the secured room. Am I wrong to leave? I guess I’ll know shortly. At the last minute, I grab another ice cream sandwich — you know, for the road and all.

  I figure our best bet to get out of here is to use one of the loading docks. Before we broke in, I noticed that one of the stores had a recessed area with a dock and a ramp. With luck, there isn’t anything there to attract the zombies and the area will be clear. Just in case, though, I sidetrack to a Hickory Farms so I can set up a little decoy before Cassie and I meet at the dock.

  “What on Earth is that?” she asks.

  I’ve taken a little boy mannequin and taped it to a skateboard. For good measure, I cover it in that cheese that spreads like butter, and I tape summer sausage to the front and back. It looks really weird – I admit that – but hopefully it will be a good distraction.

  “That’s not going to work.” Cassie laughs.

  “It might.” I open the door and shut it immediately. “Crap.”

  “Zombie?” Cassie asks with wide eyes.

  “Two.” My heart’s pounding in my chest. I almost screamed when I saw them. Just one night without their moans as my lullaby and it’s like I’ve never seen one before.

  “Delilah?”

  “Yeah, I know.” I throw open the door and they loom a few feet away. There’s a male in jeans and a red t-shirt near the end of the concrete dock and a female in a yellow summer dress close to him. The male moans as soon as he sees us, the sound warping because of a giant tear in the side of his face. The female shuffles closer, one leg covered in dried blood, the other mottled and gray.

  I shove my decoy as hard as I can and it hurtles down the ramp as the zombies’ heads snap to attention, following the motion. A long moment passes and then they go after the mannequin.

  I take a couple of deep breaths and my heart calms down. I can do this. I swing my leg over the bike, a red racing one with three speeds.

  “Stay close,” I whisper to Cassie. She nods, then I fly down the ramp.

  I hit the bottom and turn right. The two zombies from earlier are a block away. The decoy’s fallen over and they’re almost on top of it. There’s a cluster of zombies about two blocks away that raise their heads in unison as I look at them. God, that’s really spooky.

  I zoom around a body that’s been kind enough to stay dead and lying down. I think we can make it past the group of empty-heads without a problem because they haven’t moved yet. There’s another cluster to the northeast, but they haven’t seen me yet.

  “Delilah!” Cassie’s scream is sharp, loud and bound to attract every walking dead person in the area.

  I cut my bike in a tight circle and stop. She’s fallen and the bike’s on its side, tripped up by the body I dodged. And behind her is a band of fast-moving zombies.

  Chapter 12

  “Get up!” I scream. I pedal as fast as I can, angling away from her but going in that direction. I reach into my backpack and pull out an unwrapped tube of summer sausage.

  “Hey! Hey!” I yell and wave it like a meaty flag. The front leader of the band, a male with long, black skater-boy hair, whips his head toward me. He sees the sausage and moans. The others respond in concert as the entire band turns my way. I throw the meaty treat away from me and pull out another. Some of them immediately head for the one that’s already landed but Black Hair stays on me. I glance to my side and see that Cassie’s up and pedaling away.

  “Hey! Skater!” I wave the second sausage and head toward the cluster. At the last moment, I turn my bike and throw the sausage right in the middle of them. If I’d managed this kind of coordination in school, I might have actually done well in sports. Who knew fear could make your body move this way?

  I race after Cassie. Then I hear the sound of slapping feet and look over my shoulder. The rest of the zombies are fighting over the meat, but Black Hair’s still after me. I’m out of sausage and he doesn’t seem to want it anyway. I rise up in my seat and pedal hard. My fingers slide on the handlebars, wet from sweat. Think, think, think.

  “Delilah, do the cheese!”

  Do the cheese? What the heck is she talking about? Then I remember the Easy Cheese; that spreadable cheese from my decoy is still in my backpack. I sit up and ride without my hands on the handlebars. I’ll have to be quick or I’ll run into bodies. I unzip my pack and reach back but I can’t feel it. Where is it?

  There! I pull it out and flip off the cap just as I hit a patch of bodies. I put a hand on one of the bars and wobble past the clump of them. I can hear Black Hair’s feet, a second drum to accompany the pounding in my chest. I turn my upper body and spray cheese right into his face.

  He keeps running with outstretched hands. Then he trips on a body and falls to the ground. I’m not sure if he did that because of the cheese or because he was just so focused on getting me, but I don’t care either way.

  “Woo-hoo!” Cassie yells. I grin and pedal full-force until I catch up with
her.

  “There’s an exit up ahead. When we get there, take a left.” I point and she nods. I glance over my shoulder. Black Hair has gotten up and is headed our way again.

  “Okay, Cassie, whatever happens, just pedal hard and head for the exit. If we get separated, meet me one block past when you turn left.”

  “Okay,” she agrees, but she looks worried. Fortunately, Black Hair isn’t able to run yet. Ahead of us is a group of the slow-moving zombies. They aren’t shoulder to shoulder, and they haven’t noticed that we’re headed their way yet.

  “Go through those zombies,” I order.

  “What?” she screeches.

  “Just do it. As fast as you can.”

  Cassie looks at me weird, but she does it, zooming ahead of me. She has wonderful control of the bike, leaning in and curving with it to get around the zombies. I take a deep breath and follow her in.

  How can I describe this? I’m racing through a forest of zombies. There are adults, taller than me, bigger than me, moving slowly. There’s a guy to my right, in a red plaid t-shirt and jeans, missing an eye and covered in blood. If he touches me, if he grabs me and pulls me off the bike, I’m dead.

  This is crazy.

  Some of them react after Cassie goes through, slowly turning and holding a hand out like they can catch her like a well-timed baseball.

  Then the moans start. A blonde woman to the northwest of me starts to rock back and forth and the bodies around me respond. Zombie after zombie moves back and forth while letting out low moans. A female hand with bright red nails shoots out, almost hitting my forehead. I duck and pedal hard.

  There are gaps around them, pockets of air and freedom. I swerve into one of these, get the bike straight then rise up on my seat and take a quick glance behind me. If Black Hair has followed me then I can’t see him.

  The breath sucks out of me when I realize I can’t see Cassie anymore, either.

  Chapter 13

  All I see is zombies. Shuffling, vibrating empty-heads. I’m surrounded. Their ragged, bloodied clothing flaps around them. The reek of blood and decay is everywhere, and I gag and try not to throw up. I take a deep breath, as disgusting as that is, and try not to panic.

  What if I fall? What if I fall and that woman right there in the tan business suit tears a chunk off my cheek? What if the guy to my left, the one in the blue jeans and white t-shirt and orange safety vest, digs those big, meaty hands into my stomach and tears out my insides, while all I can do is scream and look up at the mass of faces coming to eat me alive?

  This isn’t helping.

  I take more deep breaths, trying to calm down.

  I swerve around a group of zombies, a mottled gray hand reaching out to me like a child trying to grab candy. I keep my balance on the bike, although it’s a near thing.

  Then, thankfully, the way ahead is clear. Cassie’s ten feet ahead of me. I take a deep breath and the tightness in my chest eases.

  We exit the mall without any further issues and turn left. We’re on a side road that has houses and a few stores.

  “Hey, a church!” Cassie points to a one-story, brown-brick church. “There could be adults in there.”

  “Stop!” I angle my bike in front of hers and cut her off.

  It’s a large building, sprawling over one entire block. The lawn has long since gone to weeds and there are a few abandoned cars in the parking lot. The doors to the church are shut, and there are no signs of blood or corrupted dead nearby. It sits quietly in the heat like a mirage of a safer world.

  “What are you doing?” Cassie frowns.

  “Cassie, we can’t go in the churches.”

  “Why not?”

  I shake my head. “Whoever was protecting you did you no favors. Churches are risky at best. A lot of the faithful went to them when everything happened. Some people just went in and prayed. Others locked themselves in with the infected without realizing it.”

  Her eyes widen.

  “Then there were the people who thought this was the End of Days. They said it was God’s will that we become empty-heads. Some of them walked out into the zombie horde. Others – entire congregations – locked themselves inside their church and turned everyone.”

  “Oh my gosh,” she says, and stares at the church like she can see through the walls to any zombies inside.

  My grip tightens on the handlebars as I gaze at the building. There was a woman named Peggy in my apartment complex who spent her Saturdays walking through neighborhoods with her church group, trying to convince people to go to her church. She started every other Saturday by knocking on my door and telling me I should come or else I’d go to Hell. She always clutched her Bible and looked at me sadly, like I might explode into flames on the spot. When the virus reached America, she tried one last time to convince me and my mom to come to her church. I didn’t appreciate that she always thought I was going to Hell and that I was a bad person, or that she felt her beliefs were more important than mine, but I did appreciate that she thought of me when things went bad.

  Her church was one of the first ones to lock down, and one of the few to be broken into back when the local news was still on the air. I don’t know if the outbreak in her congregation was accidental or deliberate, but Peggy was one of the zombies who came snarling out of that church at the end.

  Cassie and I ride away silently, me thinking about Peggy, and Cassie thinking about who knows what. The area is mercifully low on zombies. I ride past green yards with grass that’s a bit high, and some that have already gone to weeds. The houses are those small pretty boxes that were built in the fifties and sixties, with wide steps and porches that look nice but are too hot to use. There are streaks of blood on walls, on cars, and sometimes open doorways with bodies lying in them. The only sounds I hear are the tires on the pavement and the small noises we make while pedaling. I don’t hear any birds or cicadas, which is odd for this area in the summer.

  After ten minutes, we come to a crossroads. The road to the left leads to more shopping centers and larger, newer subdivisions. The road on the right leads to a quiet country road where the rich people lived.

  And in the middle of the hot, black pavement of the crossroads lies what’s left of someone I recognize even from ten feet away.

  I cry out before I even consider the danger.

  Chapter 14

  “What?” Cassie asks. I just shake my head.

  I jump off my bike and throw it to the ground before I reach his body. I recognize the bottom of his Skecher sneakers with Dragon Ball Z and other anime characters drawn all over them. In the past year, he’d started to wear his pants so they drooped below his butt, but now they’re cinched tight with a belt; I guess so he could run. In the end, he wasn’t able to run fast enough. He’s wearing a black t-shirt with “Death Note” scrawled in red and black bracelets on his wrists. He was the coolest boy in my class, even though I know not everyone thought so.

  I drop to my knees beside him. His eyes are open, fear etched in his face. There’s blood all over him. They hadn’t eaten much of him, although I’m not sure why they left him alone. He’s definitely dead, his eyes staring blankly into the sky at things I can’t see, but thankfully he hasn’t become a zombie.

  I look at his eyes, his blue eyes that glowed whenever he talked about anime and are now dull, and I burst into tears. I cry out loud, making noises I’d only heard come from my mom after the divorce from Dad was final, and he and my brother Mike were far away in California.

  Gone.

  I fall back onto my butt. Cassie comes up behind me, sits down, and hugs me. I turn around and clutch her tight.

  Everyone I’ve ever known, everyone I’ve ever loved, is dead. All except this strange little girl who I already like but don’t really know.

  Thank God my crying doesn’t bring any zombies. I don’t know why, because I’m beyond loud, but none come. Maybe the universe is giving me a break for once and letting me mourn.

  I make Cassie’s shoulder
sopping wet and I’m sure I almost squeeze the life out of her, but she doesn’t complain. Eventually, the sounds quiet and then my tears stop. We sit in silence for a few moments and then Cassie says quietly, “That was Tommy, wasn’t it?”

  “Yeah.” I look over her shoulder, away from the body and toward a lane shaded by gently curving trees. I pull back from her. “I’m sorry.”

  She gives me a small smile. “It’s okay.”

  Wiping my face, I stand up and walk to my bike, moving it so I can open my large blue backpack and grab a bottle of water from inside. I drink half of it in one gulp and put it back, then I push and shove in the pack until I find my shimmering blue dress.

  I hold it in my hands, watching the light catch. Yes, I’d talked with Tommy about anime, mostly because he was so excited and interested in that. He hadn’t asked me to the dance by the time everything started to go bad, but he would have. I would have made that happen.

  I stand with the dress in my hands and walk to Tommy. I put it neatly on top of him, but then he looks kind of gay. I wrap his hands around the dress, as if he’s holding me. My head feels funny, loose on the inside, and I know I seem crazy, but if Tommy and I can’t go to the dance then the dress should be with him. It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever owned.

  A couple more tears escape and I roughly wipe them away.

  “Come on,” I say to Cassie, then go to my bike and ride to the shaded lane beyond.

  Chapter 15

  I remember when we first found out what was happening. Mom called me in to the living room. We’d just had a fight – I wanted to stay out until midnight on Saturday with Tonya, but she said I was too young – so I stood at the entrance and asked, “What?”

  My mom sat on our soft, white couch that was patterned with large red and pink roses. On the other side of her, the sliding glass door to our small, second-floor apartment was partially open and the white panels of the plastic, floor-length blinds flapped in the breeze. It was early spring and the weather was pleasantly warm.