by Tracy Sharp
I dropped my gaze and moved back against the wall. If we lived through the night, I’d treat myself to a shower while there was still hot water. It had been three days since I’d had one, and the smell of my own sweat and fear was suffocating while we hid together, me sitting on the floor against the back wall of the closet, and Hank curled up beside me, with his head on my lap.
I trembled as we waited, and tried to keep my breathing even. I kept the gun on the floor beside me, within easy reach.
The night was silent as I strained my ears to hear any sounds that might be a threat. Every so often Hank lifted his head and his ears perked up, and my adrenalin would spike, my heart drumming against my ribcage. But then he’d lay his head back down again and I’d breathe a quiet sigh of relief.
By the time we heard the birds chirping, signaling dawn, Hank and I were both shaken and exhausted. We crawled out of the closet on stiff and unsteady legs and I let him out. Daylight was bleeding into the sky, turning it from gray slowly to blue.
He followed me to the other bedroom, not the one Larry ate his gun in, and we both settled onto the bed.
After the night we’d had, I thought we deserved a nap on a real bed. “Just a few hours, Hank. Then we decide what to do next.”
What to do next meant figuring out how to discover what was beneath the snow. Chances were that my sister was underground.
There had to be a way to find out if she was still alive. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try.
And all of those other girls and women --- what would I do if I found them alive?
But my mind was as tired as my body was, and I could barely string two thoughts together. Just a little sleep, that’s all I needed.
I closed my eyes and settled beneath the blankets with Larry’s gun tucked under the pillow.
Chapter 5
When I woke up five hours later it was 11:15, and the sun was streaming through the thin strips through the blinds. I opened them enough to get more sunlight, but not enough for anything else to see inside.
The morning was quiet, except for the occasional bird chirping. There was no movement.
Feeling relatively safe, I refreshed Hank’s water and poured more dog pellets in to his bowl. I looked in the cupboards. There were five large cans of soft dog food. The date didn’t expire until the following fall. “You’re in luck, Hank. Look what I found. There must’ve been a dog around here at some point. Maybe one that visited from time to time?”
Hank wagged his tail, then went back to chowing down. I found a can opener and added some of the soft food to his bowl. He ate the food with more enthusiasm than I’d seen him eat the dry pellets. “I’ll see if I can get you more soft food, bud. We have to enjoy our small comforts where we can now. Times have changed. I’m going to take a quick shower. Hold down the fort.”
I knew I didn’t have to talk to Hank like he was a person, but it made me feel a lot better to talk to him. It made me feel like I wasn’t all alone in the world. It helped staunch the fear, just a little.
There was still hot water. I kept the spray low, but cranked the heat of it as hot as I could stand it. The water felt like a massage on my sore muscles. Keeping my ears strained for any unusual sounds, I took my time sudsing up my entire body twice, a luxury I knew I couldn’t continue, but one I felt I badly needed. Call it a morale booster. I washed my hair slowly, using more shampoo than needed. Rinsed, and washed it again.
I didn’t know when I’d have a shower again. Anything could happen at any time. The soap smelled like cocoa butter, and the shampoo and conditioner like oranges, and by the time I stepped out of the bathtub I felt almost human again.
It was a strange thing to live in someone else’s house. I kept feeling like Larry and Megan would come home and find Hank and I here, and wonder what the hell we were doing in their house.
Then I wished it were true, and that I’d just had a break down and that the world hadn’t ended. We hadn’t been invaded and the dead weren’t rising and eating the living.
But this was how the world was now. There was no changing it, not any time soon. The best Hank and I could hope for was to avoid getting killed.
It seemed a tall order. But there it was.
The big, fluffy white towels felt incredible on my skin, and when I finished drying my body, I wrapped one around my head.
My clothes smelled funky, having been worn in for days. I searched the drawers and found fresh panties that were size small, and a sports bra that fit. The walk-in closet was taken up mostly by Megan’s clothes. And as I looked through her stuff, I quickly realized that her size six jeans would be too big. Her shirts and sweaters, although a size small, would be roomy but fine.
I looked on top of the closet and found several pairs of older jeans folded up there. Size four. These must’ve been Megan’s Jeans of Doom. Many women kept jeans from their high school and college years in hopes that they’d fit into them again. Or because they just couldn’t bear to throw them away or donate them, because it meant that their bodies had matured. It’s nostalgia. I understood, though I hadn’t reached that stage yet.
The likelihood of being lucky enough to live another day was iffy at best, never mind another year or two.
Two pair of Levi’s 505s. Two pair of 515s. Three pair of Levi’s skinny jeans. I liked Levi’s. The skinny jeans fit me perfectly. I put on a plain black t-shirt that was also folded on the upper shelf, and a sweatshirt from Megan’s chest of drawers.
The fact Megan’s clothes from earlier years were here led me to the assumption that this cabin had belonged to Megan’s family. Perhaps it was given to her by her parents. Or she and Larry had taken it over.
I felt a pang of sorrow that she’d likely been dragged from her home, like so many others.
Maybe I’d find her.
If I lived long enough.
* * *
I took the gun I’d chosen last night with spare ammo in my jacket pocket, my boot knife, tucked into the Uggs, and the hammer in my jacket. I pulled my mother’s winter hat over my head. I pulled the windbreaker pants over the skinny jeans to cut the winter wind, and give just a little extra protection against the chill. I put on the ski gloves in the jacket pocket and flexed my fingers a few times, trying to get the blood moving in them. My hands felt cold and my fingers sluggish. I was still tired. The fear and shock of the last few days had wrecked me.
But I didn’t have time to feel sorry for myself.
Suck it up. “Let’s go, Hank. We’re burning daylight.”
We wandered through the woods, staying at the periphery of the trees. I didn’t want to travel too deeply into the forest yet. This little jaunt was an exploratory trip, to see how close the reptiles were living to the cabin.
My body trembled as I looked the ground over. Snow blanketed the entire area. The snow had come again overnight, dropping another several inches on top of the foot that the storm had dropped on us. None of it had melted.
The holes could be anywhere. One wrong step and we could simply vanish through the ground.
I stepped lightly and carefully, and Hank did the same. He seemed to know what the point of the walk was, which didn’t surprise me. He knew what the deal was.
My eyes continuously scanned the ground, the trees around us. Every few minutes I stopped, searching the snow for imperfections; dents, holes, uneven snow that would suggest a sinkhole. I didn’t know if the reptiles covered the entrances to their underground structures or not.
If I had a slight idea how far underground the structures were, I could figure out more about how they were dug out.
But the only way for me to find out would be to find an entrance and to venture down into it during daylight hours. I felt secure in my theory that the reptiles couldn’t take the daylight, which is why they never emerged after daybreak. Otherwise, it would be a free for all reptiles during daylight hours.
Instead, they were hiding underground.
What the hell was under there? Did
they nest? Sleep? Where were the girls and women they’d dragged under there, kept separately from the reptiles or were they in the same areas?
I imagined what it would be like for those women. Cold, dark, barely able to breathe, if at all, with the alien monsters scuttling around. The thought sent a wave of terror washing over me, and a chilled sweat broke out over my back.
Hank moved nearer to me, nudging my hand.
“I’m okay, Hank.” I kept my voice low, almost a whisper. “Just a little freaked out. But we can’t just hide in the cabin, can we? We have to find out what happened to my sister. To Luka.”
His ears lifted at Luka’s name, and his eyes widened and searched my face.
I pointed to the snow beneath us. “She’s down there somewhere. We need to find them.”
He sniffed at the ground, then sat and waited for me to start moving again.
Suddenly he jumped up and turned around, snarling.
My heart froze. I turned.
A deadie stumbled through the snow toward us.
“Stay here, Hank. I’ve got this.” I pulled off the ski glove and shoved it in my jacket pocket as I walked through the deep snow, still keeping my steps as light as I could, and pulled the claw hammer from my backpack. It was sticking out by the handle for easy access.
The woman had probably been in her sixties when she’d died. Her white hair stuck out around her head in messy curls. Her eyes were milky white in her pasty face as she approached me, her hands reaching for me. She’d been on the heavier side, and in death she had trouble making her way through the drifts with her bulk. Her flannel nightgown billowed around her.
I swung the hammer back and hit her through the top of her head. She didn’t drop. The claw stuck, but I was able to yank it out and hit her again, for good measure.
A high pitched shriek sounded to my left, and I looked up to see a boy of about fourteen heading toward me. He was considerably quicker and more nimble than the woman, and he climbed over the snow.
Hank snarled louder, coming up behind me.
“Don’t bark, Hank. Okay?”
The hammer was stuck in the woman’s head, and I didn’t have time to fool with it. I shoved her away. No easy task. She was dead weight --- literally. She stumbled back, her eyes rolling, her dead brain puzzled by the sudden short circuit caused by the claw of my hammer.
I pulled the knife from my boot, but by then the kid was almost on top of me. His teeth were bared, blood and gore stuck between them. He made growling sounds, and came at me like he meant it. His swinging arms knocked the knife from my hand.
I jumped back, trying not to scream. The reptiles might find a way of pulling me under the snow if I was close enough to a sink hole.
The kid grabbed my leg and chomped down on my boot. I felt his teeth through the fake fur, and I hoped they hadn’t penetrated.
I kicked out with the other foot and booted him in the head.
His head snapped back with the impact and he fell back on his ass, but he was climbing up by the time I began crab walking backwards. My mind screamed for me move faster, to get away from him.
Hank jumped at him from the side and knocked him over.
The dead kid began crawling after him.
Hank snarled and let out a warning bark. His fur stood up and he readied himself to attack.
If the kid bit or scratched him, it would be the end of him.
Then I remembered the gun. “Hey!” I stage whispered to the kid.
He turned to me and drooled.
I grabbed the gun from between my lower back and waist band and aimed for the kid’s head. “Hank, stay.”
Hank didn’t like the command, but reluctantly sat down. His shoulders bunched, ready to attack.
The kid was so close now.
Hank growled and stood. He barked and started toward the kid.
I tried to pull the trigger but my finger wouldn’t work. My finger was numb with the cold.
The kid grabbed the barrel between his teeth and chomped down. His finger found the trigger and the gun went off, the bullet whizzing past my head so close I felt it.
“Jesus Christ,” I grunted. “You asshole.”
I tried to move the gun so that the barrel pointed inside his mouth but he wouldn’t let go of the gun.
My eye caught the shine of my knife blade in the snow. Letting the gun go, I bent down and reached for it, kicking my legs, pushing myself sideways toward it. My fingers reached it and curled numbly around the handle.
Lucky for me. If I’d grabbed the blade I could slice the fingers to the bone and not feel a thing.
The kid crawled toward me, the gun no longer in his mouth. His growls were now urgent and frantic with his hunger. Hank jumped on his back and the kid went face first into the snow.
I pushed myself backward, and then up onto my knees. “Down, Hank! Let me get him!”
Hank jumped down, his eyes unhappy about it.
The kid lifted his snow covered face and resumed stiffly crawling toward me.
In one swing I jammed it into his ear. His mouth opened he dropped sideways onto the snow.
I slowly stood up, panting. “Thanks, Buddy.”
Hank came up beside me and pushed lightly against my leg.
The gun lay mostly covered in snow, but the black handle stuck out, a contrast to the pure white around it. I pulled the ski glove out of my pocket and pulled it on, hoping it would thaw okay. I took the other off and picked the gun up with that hand. It still worked okay --- the hand --- I didn’t know about the gun.
I looked around, turning in a slow circle, my head whipping back and forth. The sound of the gun going off could attract deadies from miles around.
Hank growled, loudly, looking at something behind me.
“Oh, come on. This is getting old.” I turned, holding the gun in front of me, getting ready to shoot if I had to.
Dark hair, hanging over caramel eyes. It was smiling.
Deadies didn’t smile. Did they?
Then it spoke. “I heard the gun shot. Came up on you just as you skewered your zombie-kabob. Nice moves, chick. But you almost got dead. Let me show you how to use that thing.”
And I laughed, relief flooding through me.
He was alive.
And he had a crooked smile that made me want to smile even bigger.
Hank pushed between us, looking up at the kid to let him know he meant business.
The kid smiled at Hank and let him smell his glove. “Ryder, with a ‘Y’.”
A smile stretched the width of my face. “’Kay.”
“Nice to meet you, Kay.”
“No.” I had trouble speaking. I wondered if my brain had gone numb or if I was having a stroke or something.
“No? It isn’t nice to meet you?” He said, through the hair, one eyebrow raised.
I tried to explain through frozen lips. My speech was slow. I couldn’t feel my face. “No, my name isn’t Kay. I just meant ‘okay’.”
“Ah. Got it.” Hank nuzzled his hand. “And you are?”
“Hank.”
He looked up at me, his face quizzical. “Your name is Hank?”
This was getting painful. “No. He’s Hank. I’m Zoe.”
“Zoe and the zombies. I like it.”
“Cool.” I was at a loss for words. He was real. He was really real.
He patted Hank’s head. “Good to meet you too, Hank.”
I stood watching them with what I thought was a smile, but couldn’t be sure because I really couldn’t feel my face.
He looked up at me and chuckled. “Let’s go, Zoe the Zombie Killer. I’ll introduce you to my crew. We’ll take the roads. You don’t want to fall into one of their holes.”
No. I surely didn’t.
* * *
I should’ve been more cautious of this new kid, who was about my age, but I wasn’t. He could be a danger to Hank and me. A vulture, looking to take what we had and kill us after gaining our trust, but my instincts told me d
ifferently.
If he’d wanted to kill me, he would’ve done it already.
Still, it wasn’t exactly prudent to blindly follow the guy wherever he led us.
“So, you’ve got some okay moves, but you’re a little awkward, Zoe. It could get you killed.” He looked at me and grinned.
“I’m a little new at this. Forgive my fumbling.”
“And tripping. And falling. And dropping.”
“Yeah, yeah.” I rolled my eyes.
“It’s okay. I’ll help you. There are six of us at the compound. We have lots of food if you want to join us. We can always use another hand to help out.”
“The compound?” There were many others? Amazing.
Hank seemed to like Ryder, once he’d decided that he wasn’t a threat to us. He loped along beside me, seeming happy for the addition to our little team.
“Yeah. I’ll explain it all to you. But the short version is, some doomsday preppers built the compound and stocked it with supplies, in preparation for some kind of apocalypse happening.”
“You’re kidding. I’ve seen doomsday preppers on TV. I thought it was all a little paranoid. But judging by what’s happened, I guess not.”
“I thought so, too. But I guess they weren’t far off.”
“I guess not. And if they are, thank God for the crazies.” I gazed at the tree line set back from the fields, and again was struck by how gorgeous it looked.
The sun, now high in a clear, blue sky, reflected off the glittering snow and warmed us a little. It wasn’t as cold today as it had been.
The wind shifted a little and I caught the scent of soap and shampoo off Ryder as he walked beside me. He wore a black winter hat over his hair, which pushed the hair on his forehead over his eyes. He used his glove to push them absently aside.
“Ryder, tell me what you know about those reptilian things. I call them lizards.”
“We call them snakes, even though they have arms and legs. They are like lizards, you’re right. But for some reason someone in the crew called them snakes and it stuck.”