by R. J. Spears
For this house, the medicine chest only held a handful of over-the-counter meds, making me suspicious about what might be in the bedroom besides the undead. Some people kept their medicine in a safe place, locked up and out of the reach of children. In my earlier search, I had discovered that this house had kids in it. The two bedrooms decked out in Star Wars and Disney decor clued me into that. (Call me Sherlock if you want.)
Maybe these folks had their stash in a locked drawer or lockbox in their bedroom? Certainly the youngsters had ear infections that needed antibiotics. Or maybe someone got bronchitis that only an antibiotic could knock down.
The only thing between me and discovering those medicinal treasures was an undetermined amount of zombies.
I stood a few feet outside the door, listening. The dead stirred within, probably mildly excited by the sounds of my search. They groaned and grunted. I could hear one of them pawing at the door, too damn dumb to remember how to turn a simple doorknob.
I had shut the medicine cabinet in the bathroom unnecessarily loud. Maybe I did that on purpose.
Something stirred within me. It was like a thick metal chain was being pulled tight in me, and someone was heating that chain with a blowtorch. The heat seemed to be building, getting hotter by the second. It was already past the boiling point. All this heat was fueled by my hatred of the zombies.
If it hadn’t been for them, I’d be playing X-Box in my apartment. I’d be getting nachos with cheese, double stuffed beef burritos, and Mountain Dew from Taco Bell. I’d be watching the latest superhero flick instead of contemplating opening a door onto the undead. I’d be living instead of living with the dead.
I put my hand on the doorknob just as my internal temperature hit supernova. A moment later, I yanked the door open.
It was the whole damn family. Dad, mom, the two kids, somebody that could have been grandma, and another couple. Maybe they were cousins, or maybe this couple was into something kinky that I didn’t want to contemplate. Either way, it didn’t matter because they saw me, and they were coming out. And something in me couldn’t wait.
Dad was the first one out because that’s what dads do.
There was nothing paternal about this dad, though. It was hunger that drove him forward.
In life, he was around six-foot-two, weighing in at a trim one-eighty. In death, he was a little less than that and missing all the fingers on his right hand. Someone had gnawed them off because the stumps sticking out were uneven and looked chewed on.
He came out at me, arms outstretched, moaning expectantly, and wanting a piece of me. He was going to get a piece. A piece of my thirty-two ounce Louisville Slugger was what he was going to get. The fat part of the bat.
I backed down the hall, stepping backward carefully, so that I could get a little more space to swing.
“Come to papa,” I said under my breath to no one because this undead turd didn’t care what I said.
In four short steps, we were in the family room. In the corner was a mostly decomposed corpse with a handgun lying beside the body. It looked like a man, but it was hard to tell from how far the decomp was. I could only surmise that this was another person who took the easy way out. Maybe this was the same person who shut the zombie crew in the bedroom? Who knew and who cared? He wasn’t talking.
I moved into the batter’s box and turned my body perpendicular to the oncoming zombie then brought up my trusty baseball bat, taking my classic hitter’s stance. My hands were firm on the bat but not overly tight. My knees were bent, ready to propel me forward. Just to be safe, I twisted my torso on my hip and heard the vertebrae in my spine crack, getting me loose and ready. The muscles in my body tensed like coiled steel as I waited. Something in me wanted to be unleashed. It made me wait though as I built up all my kinetic energy.
Dad’s stench arrived before he did. His stumped finger hand got to within six inches of my face, and I uncoiled all those muscles. The bat flew straight and true, connecting with the side of dad’s head, which quickly became horribly misshapen, the bones crunching to accommodate the bat. A splash of black-reddish blood decorated the wall beside him, reminiscent of a Jackson Pollack painting in his prime.
The impact knocked him off his feet and into a couch. He bounced off it and fell into an undead lump on the floor. A stinky, oozing lump.
Of course, he was followed by momma. She had all her fingers, but someone had done a number on her face. A large portion of her nose was missing, giving me a wonderful view into her nasal cavity. You don’t see that every day. Long, deep gouges grooved her face, giving her a tiger stripe look, so she had that going for her.
Since I was still in my backswing position, she wasn’t going to get the full treatment, but it was still satisfying when the bat smacked her right in her face when I slapped it back across my body. The bat pinged loudly, making me almost smile. She spun in place and collapsed.
The next zombie, a boy who looked to be around twelve, was so intent on me that he didn’t notice momma in a broken heap on the floor. (My question is; where is the love?) He moaned loudly and promptly tripped over her, falling face-first on the floor, leaving the back of his head exposed. I took full advantage of his misfortune and tomahawk chopped onto the back of his skull, crushing it like an egg shell. He didn’t move again.
Usually, I hated killing the kids, but something inside me relished it that time.
I looked up into the doorway and said, “Next.” There wasn’t an ounce of mirth in my tone.
Next, I got a twofer. An older woman and the boy’s younger sister struggled to get through the narrow doorway from the hallway. It was almost comical, as they got caught like two large human corks in the doorway, their arms reaching for me as they grunted with the effort to get free. Each of them groaned from the effort, their teeth bared like angry dogs.
Both of them looked worse for the wear. The older woman looked dried out and withered, an obvious bite mark on her skull. She was also naked from the waist down. Not that I looked down there because there are some things that can’t be unseen.
The girl was mostly intact with exception of a nasty bite mark on her arm. Even after all these months, it still festered.
Impatient, I move towards them, sidestepped one of the bodies on the floor, and then reared back with my bat. The bat curled back over my shoulder, and I released. The bat flew forward and smacked the old woman in the face, but the bat also slapped against the side of the doorway, blunting the impact somewhat. It did knock the woman back a few inches, breaking the human logjam in the doorway.
The girl shot forward and slammed into my midsection, knocking me off-balance. She did her best to wrap her arms around my waist, but I stumbled backward, slipping out of her grasp and away from her into the room. I bounced off a recliner, spinning around, placing me even further off-kilter. In fact, I nearly fell completely to the carpeted floor, having to put a hand down to keep upright.
Since, I was struggling to get back up, my bat was out of the game. She used that to her advantage and came at me again.
Relentless, she grabbed onto my shoulder and started on a deadly descent with her mouth open for my neck. The stench of her breath nearly knocked me over.
Without my bat, the only thing I had to stave her off were my hands. If she had been a full grown adult, I would have been in trouble. I swung a looping left into her jaw, knocking her mouth off-course and causing her to stumble back a foot or two.
As was the usual response from these undead bastards, she was undeterred and resumed her attack. Fortunately, I had enough time to push myself off the floor.
I was still somewhat off-balance, so instead of getting my bat back into the battle, I brought up my boot in a savage kick to her face.
“Get off me, you little bitch,” I said as my boot connected with her mouth, spilling her onto the floor a few feet away. My kick loosened a couple of her teeth, which rolled onto the floor like dice. I think she got snake eyes, though. Her bad luck.
; The real problem was that my tussle with the girl gave the last two zombies time to shamble their way down the hallway into the room, making the once spacious room get smaller quickly, leaving me down to a three-to-one ratio. The new arrivals were a stocky shirtless man with shotgun wounds to his chest and a beefy woman with thick, strong arms. She was missing an ear but was pretty much intact.
The way I was feeling at the time, I liked the odds. The truth is that overconfidence can get you killed.
The girl regained her feet and came at me with the same fervor as before, acting as if she still had a full complement of teeth, when she was actually down a couple. By this time, I was fully upright again and ready for the next pitch with my bat. I wasn’t able to get into my full batter’s stance, but I was still able to uncork with a decent swing. The fat of the bat took out her forehead, smashing it in. She was out for the full ten count. Well, really, the lifetime count.
The lovers (that’s what I decided to call them) made their way into the room. The place was getting cramped with all the bodies lying about. If I wasn’t careful, there was a good chance I would end up on the floor with a zombie on top of me.
I decided on a divide and conquer approach and maneuvered myself behind a wide, cushioned chair, complete with an ottoman. The strategy worked as the lovers parted around the ottoman, coming at me from two different angles. She turned out to be fleeter of foot than her partner, so she moved from the on-deck circle into the batter’s box.
The space behind the chair didn’t provide me the freedom I needed for a full wind-up with my bat, but it was more than adequate to generate some force. To reward her for being first, she got a face full of aluminum bat, taking her out of the game forever.
The male proved craftier than the average zombie and came at me low. Or maybe he wasn’t that smart and had slipped on some of the gore and goo on the floor. Whatever happened, he was nearly down on all fours when he made his way toward my thighs. This approach made it difficult for me to get a good swing at him after my previous hit on his partner.
So, instead of swinging, I brought the bat down, spearing him in the back of the skull with the head end of the bat. It wasn’t enough to end his undead existence, but it did drive him to the floor, his arms sprawling out from his side.
Being the tenacious fellow that he was, Mr. Lover tried to get back onto his arms again, but I speared him again with the bat. My aim was off, so I hit him at the base of the neck. It didn’t put him out of action but did drive him face-first to the floor.
He switched strategies and stayed low, and I mean snake-like low, and slid his way forward, his mouth open. He targeted my foot and bit down on it with his blackened teeth clamping down onto the end of my boot. There was no way he was making it through the sole and the thick leather, but he bit with enough force that my toes felt the pressure.
“You son of a bitch,” I shouted.
I still faced the constriction of being between the back of the chair and the wall, so I stuck with my spearing motion and drove the bat down on the back of the zombie’s head.
As a way to put the zombie out of action, it was effective enough, but it had the side effect of increasing his bite pressure on my toes. I didn’t quite scream, but it was close.
I had had enough of this fucker. I yanked my foot from his mouth, kicked the chair over with my other foot, opening the space considerably, giving me room to go to town on him.
He gave it one more valiant attempt to go at me, raising to all fours again, but I had the bat over my head by then, ready to chop down on the back of his head. And I did.
The first swing was really a killing blow, but something in me broke, and I just kept going, hitting him again and again, not really knowing I was doing it. The bat came up; the bat went down. Each time it hit, the skull lost more and more of its shape, becoming less and less like a skull and more like a pulpy mass of mush.
A damn broke within me, and I became quickly removed from my actions, moving in some sort of automatic way. An automaton of death.
I was also unaware of the stream of obscenities flowing from my lips. I was equally unaware of the tears flowing down my cheeks.
I just kept going, my arms not even feeling the effort. Up they went; down they came. Each impact compacting the zombie to pulverized bones and smashed flesh.
A noise tickled my ears, but it was far, far off in the distance, a barely audible echo, as I kept going. There was barely anything to hit any longer, so I unconsciously moved from his head to his torso. I sensed the crunching of bones and ribs cracking, taking some perverse pleasure from it.
That distant noise got a little louder, but I ignored it. The creature’s rib cage depressed on both sides, sinking down like deflated balloons.
From a distance source, the noise finally broke through.
“Joel!” a voice said.
I straddled the thing’s body, going to work on its legs. A black puddle began to form around what was left of its body, but I paid very little attention it. It wasn’t until later that I noticed some of that black ooze splattered over my legs and torso.
“JOEL!” The voice was close now, breaking me out of my trance. With the bat raised over my head, I slowly turned my head and saw Brother Ed standing a few feet away, his face red from the strain of yelling.
My arms, used to the effort, wanted to bring the bat down again. And again. My soul wanted to do it forever.
Brother Ed’s voice softened and was almost a question, “Joel?” The intent was to ask whether I was alright.
I was far from alright. My woman was hurt and maybe dying. We were on the run. I had no idea if the people we left behind were even still alive. And, yes, the world was overrun with zombies. Nothing was alright.
But I had to pull it together. I was in charge but felt far from being in control of anything.
Still, I had no choice. I wiped away the tears on my cheeks and finally said, “You find anything?”
It took him a few seconds, and in that time, he moved over one of the bodies to my side. He put out his hand and said, “I found something.” He tenderly put a hand on my shoulder and squeezed it. It was as demonstrative as Brother Ed could ever be.
“Yeah,” I responded.
“The name ends with some sort of ‘cillin.’ I think that makes it an antibiotic.”
“Yeah.”
We stood in silence for another twenty seconds then I said, “Let me check the bedroom.”
There were no medicines of any kind in that room.
Chapter 8
The Night Visitors Return
The blow was like being hit by an overheated anvil, knocking Kilgore out of his chair and onto the floor. Barely awake, his eyes fluttered open, but he was far from knowing what was going on. He tried to make sense of how he ended up on the floor, but any sense alluded him.
It all became apparent when his vision fully recovered and he saw a black humanoid mass standing over him with red eyes glowing like the hottest of coals fresh from the fires of hell. A charcoal color vapor masked the details of the form, swirling about its body, but he could swear it had horns.
“You’ve let him get away again,” the Night Visitor said. His voice came out like he had gargled with a combination of hot lava and broken up pieces of burning coal. Kilgore thought he saw steam curl out of the corners of the thing’s mouth.
“I...I…” Kilgore stammered, not able to bring together a coherent thought.
The Night Visitor lifted one of its mist covered feet (that Kilgore thought looked more like a hoof) and brought it down on the chair Kilgore had been sitting on. The chair exploded into pieces, sending splinters of woods into Kilgore’s chin and cheeks.
“Jason Carter is slipping away, and you’re sleeping,” the Night Visitor spat out.
“Our...our helicopter was shot down,” Kilgore said in a way similar to a child trying to make an excuse to an angry father about a broken window as a result of carelessness with a baseball.
“I’
m tired of your excuses,” the Night Visitor said as he reached an enormous clawed hand down toward Kilgore’s head. Kilgore tried to pull away, but the back of his head smacked into the wall. The hand encircled his head, and he found himself being lifted off the floor like a rag doll, his legs dangling in the air. The temperature around his head rose by what seemed like one hundred degrees. This dangling only lasted a moment as the Night Visitor tossed him across the room into a corner. To Kilgore, the act of being tossed felt like it almost wrenched his head from his body.
Dazed, Kilgore wasn’t able to move as the Night Visitor strode across the room in two loping strides and stood over the man’s body. It took nearly thirty seconds for Kilgore to regain his full senses. It took five more seconds for the terror to return as he pushed himself as far back into the corner as he could.
“What do you want from me?” he asked in the pleading voice of a child.
“You know what I want,” the Night Visitor replied.
“I’m doing the best I can do,” Kilgore said.
“You’re best is not getting the job done.”
“Then get someone else. I didn’t ask for this.” Kilgore paused, his breath coming in jagged gasps. “If you’re so all powerful, why can’t you find him yourself?”
The Night Visitor swayed over Kilgore’s cowering form, looking as tall as any foreboding mountain. Kilgore trembled as he waited for some sort of repercussions for his outburst, like the mountain falling on him, but the Night Visitor remained still, wisps of smoke trailing off his head towards the ceiling.
Kilgore knew there were rules that even something like the Night Visitor must live by, but knowing the limits of these rules were a total mystery. The fact that there were even rules seemed absurd.