by Mark Lukens
It didn’t seem like he had seen her dart inside the shed, but she couldn’t be sure. But as soon as he went inside the cabin and realized that she wasn’t there, he would be back out in a flash and looking for her.
The smell inside the shed was still nauseating her. She turned and looked around now that her eyes had adjusted to the darkness. An old man’s body was draped over a table in the middle of the woodshed. His legs were gone, sawed off near the groin like the woman’s were. Maybe Eric took the legs off so it was easier for him to carry the bodies to the windows.
There was a pile of legs in the corner. The blood all over them was dark and coagulated, the fabric of the clothing stuck to the deteriorating flesh. A cloud of flies buzzed around the dead flesh, and they sounded like a swarm of bees to her.
Was her brother in this shed? Her mother and father?
No, Eric must’ve left them at her house. Surely the police had discovered the bodies by now and a manhunt was underway for her and Eric. It would only be a matter of time before the police found them, and then she would be rescued . . . if she could live that long.
She remembered that Eric had told her this was his family’s cabin. Surely the police would search this place soon.
But that glimmer of hope only lasted a few seconds.
She realized now that Eric had been lying about that. This was probably some random cabin he’d found, and the old man and woman lying in pieces were the owners. Eric had scouted this place out, killed the old couple, and then stocked the cabin with food so they could hide out here during the “zombie apocalypse.”
Rhonda looked back out through the cracks in the door. Eric was still inside the cabin. She needed to get out of this shed—she was trapped in here.
“Rhonda!” Eric sang her name out into the clear mountain air.
It was too late. Eric was already outside again.
“Rhonda, I know you’re out here somewhere!” His voice was pleasant and controlled, maybe even a little amused. But she could hear the malevolence just underneath. He was angry, but trying not to show it.
Eric turned the corner at the front of the cabin. He had a gun in his hand.
“Rhonda, come on out. I didn’t want you to see this yet.”
She huddled against the shed door, holding her breath as she watched Eric walk down the side of the cabin towards the back where the top half of the woman’s body lay slumped against the wall.
“I knew you would find out eventually,” Eric yelled. “I just wanted more time with you. Maybe a few more days. We had something in that cabin, and I know you felt it, too!”
He was getting closer.
Could she outrun him? She had been in that cabin for almost a week and a half now. Her muscles felt weak and her mind was foggy. She began to suspect that Eric had been slipping something into her drinks and the “gifts” that he brought back with him.
“We can still do this a while longer,” Eric said as he took another step away from the back of the cabin.
Another step closer to the woodshed.
“We can still pretend. Just like the movies we watched and the books we read. Remember how we used to talk about what we’d do if the zombie apocalypse happened? This has always been our fantasy. Ours, together.”
Another step closer.
“I don’t want to kill you, Rhonda. I . . . I love you.”
Eric smiled. He clenched the gun tighter in his hand.
He took another step closer.
Rhonda still had the claw hammer in her hand, but what good was it against a gun? A few more seconds passed by, and she didn’t even think about it . . . she bolted out of the woodshed and ran for the woods. Her muscles were rubbery and her mind was fuzzy; she was running on pure adrenaline now.
She ran through the brush in the woods, dodging trees. Her sneakers crunched on the dead leaves and pine needles. So loud. Too loud.
“Rhonda, stop!”
He sounded so close, but she didn’t dare turn around to see how close. She just kept on running.
She spotted something up ahead. A fence in the woods, maybe it was marking off someone else’s property. If she could just get inside that property . . .
A shot rang out. Rhonda swore she felt the bullet whiz right past her shoulder.
Had she been shot?
A split second later she heard a bullet smack into the tree trunk in front of her, the brittle bark exploding off of it.
Rhonda made it to the fence which was strung with barbed wire. She didn’t even hesitate, she just pulled the strung wires apart so she could squeeze through, holding the bottom wires down with her claw hammer. She couldn’t believe she had held on to the hammer the whole time she’d been running.
She was almost through the fence, but then her pants snagged on the barbed burs, holding her there. She was stuck.
Another shot rang out. She felt the impact of a bullet strike her calf. It hit her so hard she was pushed through the fence to the other side where she landed with a thud.
Oh God! I’m shot! He shot me!
“Rhonda, stop! Stop right there! Wait for me!”
His voice sounded so close. She felt like she was going to pass out; everything at the edges of her vision was going dark.
Get up! she told herself. You have to run!
Rhonda jumped up to her feet and grabbed the hammer that she’d dropped on the leafy ground. She hobbled away, but she was surprised that there wasn’t much pain in her leg.
Maybe she was in shock.
Maybe the pain would come later.
If there was a later.
She tried not to pay attention to Eric’s voice calling out to her, threatening her, then begging her to stop, then threatening her again.
There was something ahead in the trees, some kind of wood structure. Maybe it was a house, but as she got closer she realized it was some kind of woodshed. But this shed was at least twice the size of the one she’d just been in, the one with the old man’s body draped over the table and the pile of legs in the corner.
She prayed that Eric was having as tough of a time as she’d had with the barbed wire fence.
But she was also sure she would feel another bullet rock her forward and slam her to the ground. Or worse—she would feel his hands grabbing at her, tackling her.
She reached the shed. She hobbled to the doors and pulled them open. She went inside, frantically looking around. Wood counters ran down both long sides of the shed with old tools and junk piled up on them. There were stacks of lumber in the shed, big metal jugs, pieces of what looked like scrap metal and air-conditioning parts. Large pieces of antique furniture were stacked up against the far wall, some of them covered with plastic blue tarps. Some of the exposed wood was coated with green mildew.
She needed to hide in here somewhere, but then she looked down at her blood-soaked leg. Eric would be able to follow her blood trail anywhere she went. He would know where she would be hiding.
Maybe that was it.
She grabbed a warped roll of duct tape from the counter and wrapped some of it around her calf, stopping the flow of blood. She threw the roll of tape back on the counter with the other junk.
“Rhonda! You can’t hide from me!”
He was close, but not all the way to the shed yet. Maybe he was even slowing down now that he knew where she was. She might still have at least thirty seconds.
There were spots of blood on the ground outside the shed doors, and she’d tracked more blood when she’d stepped inside. She took off her sneakers and left one just inside the shed doors in the splash of light, and then she slid her other sneaker under the corner of the plastic tarp with the toe of the shoe sticking out.
She hurried out through the shed doors, making sure she wasn’t leaving any blood behind now. The tape had worked. Outside, she prayed she wouldn’t run into Eric, but he wasn’t there yet. She darted around the corner, waiting at the side of the shed with her claw hammer clenched in her hands.
Leaves cr
unched as he approached, and twigs snapped.
Was he coming up behind her?
She turned around and looked at the rear corner of the shed. She couldn’t tell where the sound was coming from, but he wasn’t sneaking up behind her.
And then she heard him at the shed doors; she heard the door creaking as he opened it all the way.
“Rhonda, come on out. I know you’re in there.”
The next few seconds of silence seemed to stretch out forever. Was he still waiting in front of the doors?
“Don’t make this hard on yourself,” he finally said. He sounded like he was still in front of the shed doors, still waiting. And why not? He had all the time in the world. As far as he was concerned, he had her trapped inside the shed.
But he was still waiting.
Why?
Had he figured out her plan? Maybe he was too smart for that. Maybe he’d seen too many movies like she had.
“Come on out,” he said, and she breathed a sigh of relief. “If you come out, I’ll make it quick. I promise. Otherwise, well, I think you’ve seen what I can do.”
Rhonda heard him take a step inside the shed.
Then another step.
This was her only chance.
She peeked around the corner. Eric wasn’t there—he was already inside.
She hurried towards the shed doors, her bare feet making no noise on the marshy ground.
For a split second Rhonda was sure that Eric had figured out her plan. She was sure he would be waiting just inside the doorway with his gun aimed at her. She would see a blast of light from his gun and then everything would be over.
Would it be so bad? At least she would be with her family again.
But when Eric spoke from inside the shed, she knew he hadn’t figured it out yet. “You had your chance, Rhonda.” And then, lower, almost under his breath: “Oh, the things I’m going to do to your body.”
She rushed inside and struck him in the back of his head as hard as she could with the claw part of the hammer, the claw sinking into his skull. He collapsed like invisible strings holding him up had been cut. She let go of the hammer’s handle as he fell, the claw still stuck in the back of his head. He fell on his face. His gun slipped from his hand and slid away into the darkness.
Was he dead?
No, he was moaning and writhing on the dirty and stained concrete floor. There was blood coming out of the wound in his head, but not as much as she thought there would be.
Without thinking about it, she put her foot on his upper back and grabbed the hammer’s handle and pulled. It was really stuck in the bone, but she wriggled it free as he moaned louder and tried to flip over.
She raised the bloodstained hammer up as he turned over. His eyes were wide, his mouth open like he was struggling for air. He tried to grab at her legs, and he was up on his knees so quickly, ready to lunge at her.
But he was a second too slow.
She sung the hammer and struck him in the side of his head. It made a wet thumping sound, and he went down.
“That’s for my family,” she told him.
He was down flat on his stomach again, but not out yet. His face was stained with blood, and he writhed on the floor. He looked a little like a zombie himself now.
She grabbed the roll of duct tape that she’d used to wrap around the bullet wound in her leg. She pulled his hands behind his back and taped his wrists together. He tried to struggle as she bound him, but he was too weak. After his hands were secured behind his back, she taped his ankles together, wrapping the tape around at least ten times.
Then she stood up and pushed her hair out of her face. She spotted the bloodstained hammer on the floor near him. She thought about picking it up and hitting him with it again.
And again and again.
Maybe if she was a character in one of those zombie movies she could have done it. But maybe she was never going to be like one of those characters.
She left Eric there on the floor, moaning and struggling. She walked through the woods and came across an old lady who stood there, aiming a shotgun at her.
“What’s all that commotion?” the old lady asked. “I heard gunshots.”
Rhonda dropped down to her knees and raised her hands in surrender. She started crying. “Help me. I’ve been shot. He . . . he tried to kill me.”
“Who?” the old woman asked as she lowered her shotgun a little.
“He’s in your shed. I hit him with a hammer. Please . . . call the police.”
The old woman yelled over her shoulder without completely taking her eyes off of Rhonda. “Jerry, get the phone! Call the police!”
The old lady turned back to Rhonda and smiled. “You’re safe now, child.”
Rhonda lowered her hands and bent forward. She began sobbing.
The idea for this story came to me while I was watching some kind of zombie movie (I can’t even remember it at all anymore). I didn’t think the movie was very good, but there was a young couple holed up in a cabin or a house or something (as they so often are in zombie movies), and I began to wonder . . . what if a guy somehow convinced a woman that the zombie apocalypse had begun just so he could keep her captive for weeks? And then the idea was born. Of course, I had to work out how the guy could fake an entire zombie apocalypse, and I hope I pulled that off here.
ON THE MOVE
Jack crept through the dark house with his duffel bag gripped in one hand, heading towards the back door. The place was quiet. The digital clock on the stove showed nearly four o’clock in the morning in bright green numbers. Cindi (that’s how she spelled it—Cindi with an “i”) was asleep . . . more like passed out from all the wine they drank earlier, but he still wanted to be quiet—he didn’t want her to wake up and catch him running out on her. He’d told her in the beginning that he couldn’t stick around; he wasn’t the kind of man who was ever going to stay long. She’d told him that she was fine with that. But the women he met never really were; they all thought they could change him, that if the sex was good enough, and if they loved and cared about him enough, then he would change . . . and he would stay.
But he never stayed.
He couldn’t.
He didn’t leave and move on just because he wanted to be free to travel and meet some new woman—he left to protect them. He was never able to stay in one place very long. As soon as he saw the boy show up, he knew it was time to move on. The boy had shown up last night, the boy who always followed him.
The boy was relentless . . . the boy never gave up.
The boy was dead.
Jack crept to the back door. Millie, Cindi’s overfed cat, rubbed up against his legs, purring. It almost seemed like Millie didn’t want him to go, like she was acting as a surrogate for Cindi, trying to entice him to stay, a silent plea for him not to leave this time.
But Millie really just wanted him to let her outside.
And he did. He and Millie walked out through Cindi’s back door together.
It took an hour for Jack to walk into town, and then another two hours to walk through it. He finally caught a ride with a trucker heading west into Oregon.
“I’m heading to Portland,” the trucker told him.
“Fine with me,” Jack said as he climbed into the cab.
The trucker introduced himself as Ralph. They shook hands. Jack offered to pay Ralph some money for the ride. But Ralph turned it down, perhaps feeling that Jack needed the little bit of money he’d earned laboring for a construction company more than he did.
Jack settled back into the seat. Ralph made small talk for a little while, and Jack obliged, realizing that the true fare for this ride was conversation.
“You got kids?” Ralph asked as he drove.
“No,” Jack answered. “You?”
Ralph nodded. “A boy.”
“How old is he?”
“He’s eleven,” Ralph said and then he was quiet for a moment. “I need to get back to my boy. He needs me.”
Jack
felt a chill run through him—maybe it was the worried expression on the trucker’s face, or the tone of his voice. But the chill had really come because the conversation reminded Jack of the dead boy who was following him, the dead boy who wouldn’t leave him alone.
Ralph grew silent for a while, lost in his thoughts as he drove. Jack tried to think of something else to say after their conversation had died, but then he eventually dozed off.
They were heading west towards the ocean. The land would end at that ocean, and Jack would have to decide whether to head north or south. At least he was putting some distance between the boy and himself. But the boy would find him again eventually—he always did.
The boy’s name was Adam. Jack had found that out after reading a newspaper article about the auto accident that had killed him—a hit and run accident. Police were still looking for the driver.
Jack had been that driver.
He couldn’t help dreaming about the accident; the scene replayed itself nearly every time he closed his eyes, drawing him back to that lonely road on that late fall afternoon. It had been a Sunday, and dusk had come quickly. Jack had been at a friend’s birthday party, and the drinking had started. Jack had left early, but not before chugging down six bottles of beer.
Six beers—that was all he’d had. Not enough to make him drunk, but maybe just enough to throw his concentration off a little. What threw his concentration off even more was his cell phone. When he struck Adam with his truck, he’d been trying to answer a text from his girlfriend, trying to let her know that he was on his way home and that he would be there soon. She was already mad that he’d gone to the party in the first place—she didn’t like his friends.
Between glancing down at his phone and driving, he’d never seen the boy on the bicycle.
Adam . . . his name had been Adam.
Jack struck Adam so hard that he’d knocked both the boy and his bicycle into the woods. Jack had screeched to a stop on the lonely Virginia road. Nobody was coming in either direction; he hadn’t seen another car for the last ten minutes.