I stand fully up, preparing to climb back over the stall and head over to grab my bounty, but my foot slips on one of the metal chains holding the crappy guns to the table and I trip, grabbing the table behind me for balance. I breathe a sigh of relief just in time for nine glass bottles to clatter and fall from their stand. I wince and pray that the sound just seems incredibly loud to me, but when a low chorus of moans and growls echoes around the fairground, I know I don’t have much time.
I dive over the stall and run as fast as I can, my sneakers digging into the hard summer ground and sending up dust behind me. I leave behind the sound of moans and the clatter of bottles and cheap guns falling and grit my teeth as I push harder and faster to get to the bows and arrows. Shadows move around me, and as I focus on one, more appear. My stomach lurches of its own accord, giving me the impression that now would be a perfectly normal time to freak the hell out—if not wholly inconvenient. The thought of Brown Eyes and my best friend needing my help keeps me strong and moving forward, toward my weapon.
I reach the stall, place one hand on top, and throw myself over the other side of it. I shoulder slam into the ground and try to stop my momentum from knocking over the stand and causing too much more noise. I can hear growls coming from all around me, and I try to slow my breathing and make it as quiet as possible, hiding under the stall—almost mimicking my previous position.
Reaching my hand around the ground, I feel numerous bows and I carefully pull one to me. It feels good in my hand—strong—even though I know it’s probably made of cheap wood. I know it will fire if I need it to. With my other hand, I root across the dark ground, feeling for arrows, finding several in a box. The points are pretty blunt, but hopefully with enough power behind them they can still do some good.
I look around me in the darkness for something I can use to carry the arrows, but it’s too dark, and I don’t dare get my iPhone out to use the built-in flashlight. I shuffle out from under the stall when my breathing has returned to normal and I don’t hear any movement close by. The cop car’s blue light reflects off the back of the stall, and I can see a small brown backpack, which would be perfect to carry the arrows, hanging near a coat.
I peek over the top of the stall, my blood freezing in my veins when I see a dark shadow lurch from around the police car. In the flash of blue it’s clear that this man is missing most of his face. I gasp involuntarily and he pauses mid-lurch, lifting his nose in the air before finally turning in my direction with a low growl.
“Shit,” I mumble. I glance back at the bag, knowing that if I stand up and make a grab for it, I’ll be giving away my position. But what choice do I have? I can’t carry around a handful of arrows, and I need to find Daryl and Brown Eyes quickly.
A long, piercing scream makes up my mind and I abruptly stand and grab the backpack off the hook. It snags on something on the wall, and for a few precious seconds I don’t think it’s going to come free. When it does, I’m pulling so hard that I collapse backwards into the stand and knock a ton of things over. The faceless man growls louder, his growl joined by several more, each echoing around me. I grab handfuls of arrows and thrust them into the bag before throwing it over my shoulders and sliding it onto my back as I start to run.
The faceless man is nearly upon me by the time I climb over the other side.
But I’m not worried about him anymore.
I’m worried about the other ten or so monsters that have come out from wherever they were hiding—each one a new horror to see.
Another long, piercing scream sounds out, and I throw caution to the wind and run in the direction of it, dodging reaching arms and bodies that try to stop me as rotten smells invade my senses and make my eyes water.
I run, passing several dead bodies that litter the ground that I try not to look at too closely, past blood-smeared stalls and overturned food carts, until I come to the House of Glass—the place the screaming is coming from.
Six.
Bodies surround the place, both dead and alive—well, sort of alive—and I’m about to go in search of my friends somewhere else when I hear Daryl’s loud ass shouting. Another scream and I’m almost certain that they are both inside the House of Glass. A noise behind me makes me turn just in time to see long, gangly arms reaching for me, and I duck and run to the entrance.
I slam into the doorway, skidding to a halt as my eyes adjust to the dimness inside. I take a breath and try to ignore the pounding of my brain as a migraine begins to throb behind my eyes. My hand still clutches onto the bow, but in here it won’t be any good: there’s not enough space to be able to shoot it properly. I pull an arrow out of the backpack, feeling the point and knowing it’s not really sharp enough for what I want—not unless I put a helluva lot of strength behind it. Passing the bow over my shoulder, I travel further inside.
I can hear Daryl shouting and Brown Eyes sobbing, but I don’t immediately find them. Instead, I’m forced to travel through the maze of glass walls. Things eventually go quiet. It’s dark and confusing as hell in here. Every now and then I bump into a glass wall, my face slamming into the warm sheet of glass that I thought was a doorway.
I try not to panic, putting every thought I have into finding Daryl, because wherever he is, I know he’ll have Brown Eyes and I know he’ll look after her for me. I bump into the wall again, and curse under my breath. A bloody hand slams onto the other side of the glass, a face appearing seconds later.
The face is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before—bloody, with chunks of nose missing—and for a minute all I can do is stare. The face—the man—snaps at me, his teeth trying to bite through the glass. I gulp, knowing what I’m seeing but not quite believing it because up close this is even more horrifying. It head-butts the glass and growls, and I hit the other side—partly in anger, partly in fear. It—he—doesn’t care, though; he head-butts again and again until the skin on his forehead splits and blood seeps out. Every time he slams his head against it, fresh blood splatters onto the glass.
I take a step back, feeling intensely claustrophobic—and yeah, wanting to get away from the freak cracking his skull open in front of me. I reach out and fumble my way around another confusing glass corner, seeing movement once more on the other side of the glass, but this time the movements aren’t jerky and freakish, this time I can see that it’s Daryl: his orange hair is like a beacon to me even in the dimness.
I bang on the glass and yell to get his attention. He’s facing the opposite way, and is walking backwards. I bang again and he glances over his shoulder toward me, his eyes going wide when he sees me. In his arms is Brown Eyes, and in front of them another one of the freaks with a gaping wound in its neck.
“Matty!” Daryl shouts to me, the panic evident in his voice.
“Daryl,” I yell back, and feel my way along the walls to try to get to them, but with every corner turned, I seem to be getting further away from them. Panic courses through me and I shout in frustration.
I can hear her crying loudly. I can hear the growls of the . . . people, and I can hear Daryl yelling for me to help, but I can’t damn well find my way to them. I slam a hand against the glass, imitating the freak from earlier. I turn on my heel and continue to scramble around in the glass maze, every once in a while the stench of rot filling my nostrils and making me turn in a different direction.
I turn a corner and my foot slips in something on the ground. I stop but don’t look down, knowing what it is but not wanting the clarification of it.
“Daryl?” I whisper hoarsely, still not wanting to look down.
No voice comes back to me, so I say it again, quieter this time. “Daryl? Brown Eyes?” I squeeze my eyes shut, take a breath, and reluctantly look down to my feet.
Brown Eyes stares back up at me, her complexion paler than snow, and her lips have a blue tinge to them. Blood bubbles sluggishly out of a hole in her neck, and for a second I think she’s okay, that she’s not really…dead. But when I look at the rest of her body, I see t
he real horror: an empty cavity where her stomach once was, her intestines trailing out of her like worms exploding from a can.
I squeeze my eyes shut against the image, only opening them when I hear a shuffling sound. I grip the arrow in my hand tighter, ready to slam it into the body of whatever comes at me. Daryl comes around the corner, his hair matted to his head, his movements awkward, and his stare vacant. He growls at me, baring bloody teeth and wrenching a sob from my chest.
“Daryl, man, what the hell happened to you?” I don’t know why I ask—I know he won’t answer. But I do.
He cocks his head to one side in an animalistic gesture and reaches for me. I drag a hand down my face, wiping away silent tears and sweat. He trips on Brown Eyes’s body, stumbling into me, mouth snapping, and I catch him, holding him at arm’s length. He fights against me, the scent of death thick on him.
“Daryl, man, I love you.” I reach back and slam the arrow tip into the side of his head just as his face gets too close to mine. He stops immediately as I feel the arrow pierce his skull and embed in his brain.
He collapses against me, and this time I cradle his dead body against mine, sliding down to the floor and sitting amongst the blood and body parts.
Seven.
I don’t know how long I sit there, but the blood has begun to dry on my clothes by the time I decide to stand back up. I check my phone after laying Daryl down carefully next to Brown Eyes. I kiss her cold lips and close her eyelids for her, and say goodbye to them both.
There’s no signal on my phone, not even a busy signal, and strangely as I stumble around and find myself back outside, the outside seems much calmer than when I went in. I peer around carefully, checking for the…people, but seeing and hearing nothing.
I walk silently, sticking to the shadows and away from the dead bodies that still litter the ground. My mind fumbles with what to do and where to go. I traipse without intention, coming to a stop as I lean against the side of a stall to get my bearings on everything that has happened. I realize that I’m standing by the popcorn stand, and I reach in without even thinking and grab a handful and fill my mouth.
The saltiness is refreshing after the bitter taste of bile and rot that has filled it for the last couple of hours, and strangely it settles my anxious stomach. I grab another handful, thinking through a plan that could be either genius or stupid—because it seems obvious to me now what this is.
Daryl had it both right and wrong when he said this was Armageddon: this is a zombie apocalypse. These aren’t people—not anymore. They’re the dead, and they’re walking around again. Without my best friend, and Brown Eyes, nothing seems important anymore, apart from killing as many of these things as possible and putting an end to this and their misery before it destroys any more lives.
I rub my hand down my pants and grab one of the cans of soda from the stand, not bothering to leave a dollar for it since no one is there to accept. I swallow the entire thing down and grab another, all the time my eyes and ears and watching and listening for movement. I throw a couple of the cans into my backpack for later and set off for the army base in the mountains. My uncle used to tell me about it when he looked after me while Mom worked her night shifts. I’m grateful that neither of them are alive to see all of this happening now.
As I pass the entrance, the large fairground sign overhead swinging in the light evening breeze, I hear soft crying coming from between the parked cars. My hand clutches my bow tighter and I move toward it. My head screams at me to go in the opposite direction, but my heart tells me that I have to do the right thing; I have to try to save people if I can. That’s how I was brought up—to be a man and help others that can’t defend themselves. I’m a lover, not a fighter—but I can be a fighter if I need to be. And right now that’s who and what I need to be.
I edge toward the sound of crying, my heart pummeling the inside of my chest. I crouch next to the front of a car, count to three, and peer around it. A woman with curly hair gives a short, sharp scream before scrambling backwards and falling on her ass.
“Please don’t, please,” she begs loudly.
“Shhh,” I whisper angrily, aware of the noise she’s making.
“Please, please!” she says again, continuing to scramble away.
“Lady, shush, please,” I say louder to try to get her to calm down.
A figure appears from behind her, and for a second I think it’s another survivor. For a second I’m glad to have someone to help me calm this crazy woman down—that is until the figure steps forward and growls.
The woman screams loudly, unsure which direction to go in now, since both of her exits appear to be blocked.
“Aah, crap.” I stand up and take aim with my bow. As the zombie steps forward and I make a hundred percent certain that it is in fact a zombie and not another survivor, I release my arrow and hit it between the eyes.
It sticks into its forehead, but doesn’t go deep enough to stop it in its tracks, so I grab another arrow and fire again. This one embeds itself into its head, and it pauses in its lurching before hitting the ground like a sack of potatoes.
The woman screams again, her hands covering her face.
“Shut up! You’re going to bring every one of these things to us,” I shout-whisper.
The woman stops screaming but continues to sob. She clamps a shaky hand across her mouth, but doesn’t move to stand up. I reach down and pull my arrows from the zombie’s head, not relishing in the sensations of them tugging on the skull as I wrench it free. I shake off the excess blood with a grimace, my stomach feeling queasy as the stench rises and fills my nose. The woman gags and I look across to her.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
She stares at me, her eyes wide. “What’s happening?” Her chin trembles.
“I don’t really know.” I hold out a hand. She takes it and I pull her to her feet. Taking a look around us to make sure no more are on their way, I reply. “But I think it’s the apocalypse.”
She snorts out a dry laugh. “Don’t…don’t be stupid.” She says it, but by the look of fear on her face it’s obvious that she knows I’m right, she just doesn’t want to admit it yet.
“Whatever, I’ve gotta go. Where’s your car?” I ask.
She points to the one with the zombie lying prone next to it.
“Figures.” I huff, grab its arms, and drag it out of the way. “You good now?”
She shakes her head. “No.” She looks around us. “What do we do now?”
I shrug. “I honestly don’t know. Get to your loved ones and find somewhere safe to wait this thing out, I guess.” I shrug again and turn to leave. A thought hits me and I turn back around. “Were you here with them? Your loved ones—your family I mean?”
She nods frantically, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears.
I look at the ground and then back up to her. “Do you want to come with me?” I ask almost reluctantly.
She watches me for a second or two before nodding. “Yes, I don’t want to be on my own. I mean, I can be useful, I won’t be a burden. I can shoot, and I can fight. I know you’re just a kid, but you seem to know what you’re doing.”
I nod. “I’m not a kid anymore, not after what I’ve seen today,” I say darkly. “Let’s go then.” I jerk a thumb to her car, not wanting to talk about it anymore. We need to get out of the open and away from here—away from civilization in general.
We both climb into her car, a silver Prius. I buckle up and watch her do the same.
“I’m Jessica,” she says, turning to me.
“I’m Mathew, but my friends call me Matty.”
“It doesn’t feel right leaving them here,” she says, to herself more than me.
I don’t say anything, but wait for her to come to terms with her loss. I had a little time to mourn—though I know I’ll need to mourn again soon, just not right now. Right now I need to get away from here, I need to get to safety. When five minutes passes and we still haven’t moved, I turn to her.
“We have to go, Jessica.”
She wipes away the tears from her cheeks. “I don’t know if I can. My babies are in there.” She looks toward the fairground. “My whole family.” She sniffles.
I think about Daryl and Brown Eyes lying dead inside the House of Glass. I think about the man smashing his head against the glass, and the faceless man, and all the other zombie people. I think about the mother and child on the Ferris wheel and my gut twists painfully, and then I swallow down my sadness and anger.
“They’re not your babies anymore. Your babies are in here now.” I reach across and touch her chest where her heart should be.
She flinches against my touch but doesn’t move away, silent tears still pouring from her eyes.
“And in here.” I touch her head, and she moans quietly against her loss. “They would want you to survive, to live.”
I pull my hand back, placing it back in my lap, and wait again. After a minute she starts the engine and begins to back out of the space carefully. She goes to flip on her lights but I stop her before she does.
“Not yet—wait till we get further away first.”
She nods and continues to drive, dodging the cars and bodies the best she can in the dark. As we get to the main highway, she looks across to me.
“Where to?” She flips her lights on, illuminating the zombie-ridden road in front of us. She gasps and quickly turns them off again as one by one the zombies look toward us.
“Away from here as quick as you can would be a start,” I say as she steps on the accelerator and we speed away from the funfair.
I look out my passenger window, watching the funfair fade into the distance. Thoughts of my best friend and a girl whose name I never knew are burned into my memory forever.
The Dead Saga (Novella Part 2): Odium Origins Page 3