3.2 As the World Dies Untold Tales Vol. 2

by Rhiannon Frater

  Katarina toppled a chair onto him, but Randall did not relent. He growled and snapped his teeth together, his teeth drawing ever closer to her leg.

  “Let go of me!” Katarina raised the cleaver over her head. “Let go!”

  Randall lunged, teeth snapping. She slammed the cleaver downward. Her first whack sliced off his nose and lips, but he kept trying to bite her, undeterred. She immediately hacked at his head again and kept hitting him until his fingers loosened and he fell silent.

  She had killed Randall.

  She had killed two men.

  In a daze, she circled toward the back of the café and saw that no one remained inside. She was alone.

  Feeling sick to her stomach, yet resolved, she walked over shattered dishes, clumps of food, past overturned chairs and tables, and out the back door into the sunlight.

  The parking lot was nearly empty.

  Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out the keys to her mother’s old Ford Buick. She had to go home. Wash off the blood. Call the police. She had to tell them she had killed two men.

  Unlocking the car door, she listened to the birds singing in the trees. The morning was so peaceful. Yet it felt like it was apart from her. She stood outside the world, as though nothing was real in this moment except the blood covering her and the cleaver in her hand.

  Once behind the wheel, she tossed the cleaver onto the passenger seat and started the car. It slowly rolled out of the parking lot and down a sun-dappled lane. The cafe was on the outskirts of Ashley Oaks, so she drove along the old highway until she could turn onto a city street.

  The blood on her reeked, coppery and disgusting. She ignored her discomfort, concentrating on driving home. There she would have to deal with her mother screaming at her and demanding to know what had happened.

  And she would have to answer truthfully.

  She had killed two men.

  If only she felt some other emotion other than eerily calm.

  As she turned down another street, she saw the town clinic’s parking lot packed with cars. Wounded were being carried inside by concerned friends and family. One woman was screaming, clutching a bloody stump where her hand used to be. Several of the Sherriff department deputies attempted to direct the human traffic making their way inside. The crowd was loud, terrified, and shell-shocked.

  Katarina observed the chaotic scene as her car slid past the clinic. The wounded people reminded her of the man staggering into the café. Something was wrong. Terribly, terribly wrong.

  Just as she turned onto another street, she heard screams erupting from the direction of the clinic. A few moments later there were gunshots.

  Clutching the steering wheel, Katarina stared out at the world dispassionately. Everything felt dream-like and unreal. Cars sped past her as gunshots continued to bark and echo through the neighborhood. She spotted a woman standing in a side street screaming.

  Another turn.

  Another shocking scene.

  A car crashed into a tree. Bloodied people clawing at the windows. The engine on fire.

  Chaos was everywhere. Even on her own street.

  Ahead was her home.

  No, not her home.

  It was her mother’s house and Katarina’s prison.

  In the front yard, Katarina’s mother stood in her nightgown, clutching the garden hose. She was screaming at two children racing through her flower garden, brandishing the spray nozzle like a gun. She always sprayed dogs, cats, children and even adults to keep them off her perfectly-manicured lawn.

  But Katarina knew that the two children would not run away from the blast of water. They were ruined masses of flesh just like the stranger and Randall.

  She tried to cry out and warn her mother, but her voice was lost in her throat.

  In seconds, the children were upon her, knocking the nozzle from her hand.

  Katarina braked, shifted into park, grabbed the cleaver, and sprang from the car.

  This isn’t real, she thought, but the cleaver in her hand was sticky with blood and fleshy bits.

  The world didn’t feel real, but the cleaver did.

  It wasn’t until she was hacking away at the small limbs and heads of the children biting into her mother’s chest that the world finally snapped back into focus. Suddenly every whack of the cleaver registered fully in her senses: the impact that jarred her joints, the terrible sound of the blade slashing through flesh and bone, and the stink of death and blood.

  Sobbing, she kicked the bodies of the children away from her mother. The tiny broken forms lay silent and twisted on the green lawn.

  “Mother, I’m so sorry,” Katarina cried out.

  Leaning over her mother, she saw the woman’s angry eyes fastened on her with seething hate. The woman who had conceived her to be her servant, her caretaker, glared at her with unremorseful hate.

  “I’ll take care of you, mother,” Katarina promised.

  The hateful gaze faded into oblivion.

  “I’ll always take care of you.”

  Katarina raised her cleaver.

  In the darkened house, Katarina listened to the world dying. Showered, dressed in jeans, a t-shirt, and denim jacket, she heard the moans of the dead mingling with the death cries of the living outside the tiny house.

  The TV was muted, but the closed captioning and scenes of chaos told the full story. Something terrible was happening in the world and it was everywhere.

  As she stared at the images of death and destruction, she loaded her father’s old hunting rifle. The cleaver was cleaned and lying on the coffee table beside a box of ammunition. A backpack filled with her meager possessions listed near the front door. Where she going she didn’t know, but she would not sit in this house any longer. It had never been a home. It had been her prison. And now, as the world died, she was set free.

  Standing, she shoved the box of ammunition into her jacket. She stared at the cleaver and its brutal, shiny beauty. She started to reach for it, but reconsidered. The intimacy of killing with it was too much to bear.

  She snagged her backpack on the way out the door.

  The car sat where she had left it, the driver’s door open, the engine still ticking. One of the things that used to be a living being rushed her. She paused in her steps, raised her rifle, gazed through the sight, and fired. A plume of blood flashed bright red in the sunlight, then it fell.

  She had killed three men, two children, and her mother today.

  A quick look inside the car and she saw it was clear. She slid into the driver’s seat, shut the door, and shifted gears. Black smoke was rising from the direction of the highway. She would head out of town and see if anywhere in the world was safe.

  A stop sign loomed ahead and she considered running it. At the last minute, she banged on her brakes and stared through the windshield at the quiet street before her. It looked so normal, quaint, and peaceful, but it was a lie. Death was everywhere now. The world she had known was dying.

  She started the car through the intersection when she heard the whoop of a siren. Her foot stomped on the brake.

  A deputy sheriff’s car pulled up beside her. The window scrolled down and she quickly lowered hers as well. A very young man with blond hair and bright blue eyes that were a little too wide stared out at her.

  “You need to get to city hall! We’re making a perimeter to keep them out!” he yelled at her. “I’m heading there now. Want to come along?”

  She killed the engine, grabbed her rifle and her backpack, and abandoned her mother’s car. The deputy shoved the passenger door open and she climbed in. The car reeked of sweet and blood. The young man was shaking and looked more like a scared boy than a seasoned lawman. He was covered in blood.

  “You okay?” she asked warily.

  “Not my blood,” he answered sadly.

  “I’m Katarina.”

  “Curtis,” he said, and shifted gears.

  The car glided through town in the direction of the big hotel that loomed over Ash
ley Oaks. Empty store fronts, abandoned gas stations, and forlorn, empty lots were once the telltale signs of the dying town. But now it was truly dead.

  Or was it?

  Ahead, Katarina saw trucks filled with earth pulled up around the new construction site. A group of men were shoving heavy bags of cement and dirt under the vehicles and between the cabs and the trailers creating a barricade. A mangled wreck was near the new fortifications.

  “That’s it?” Katarina asked.

  “Yeah,” Curtis responded in a tired, frightened voice.

  They parked on a side street and ran together to the blocked off area. As they scrambled over the back of a truck, the construction site came into focus. People were camped inside, clustered together. She could see some of her old customers among the survivors: Juan, Travis, Old Man Watson, Peggy the city secretary, Mayor Reyes, and others.

  Katarina felt the world tilt and shift again as the world took on a new reality.

  A shout behind her drew her attention. Turning, she saw some of the construction workers scrambling to evade one of the dead things. Raising her rifle, she felt a tear on her cheek as she did what she now knew she was very good at and would serve her well in this new world.

  She killed.

  The Unknowns’ Story

  This untold tale is about the people who dwell in the background of the AS THE WORLD DIES trilogy. Not everyone survived to make it to the fort, and not every survivor in Texas made it to Ashley Oaks. I have been dying for some time to tell some of those stories.

  The inception of this particular story occurred when a small press asked me to be a part of a new flash fiction anthology. I wrote the first section of this story with that anthology in mind. Later, when the anthology was canceled, I decided to expand the story for my online fans now that I was free of the constraints of word limits.

  The tale is rather disturbing as it deals with vengeance, jealousy, and madness in the claustrophobic confines of a survivor haven.

  I am very happy to include A Terrible Moment in this collection

  .

  A Terrible Moment

  She wanted it to be over.

  The constant moaning of the dead outside the warehouse was wearing away at her last nerve. Her hands trembled at her sides as she clenched them into tight fists. The cool air reeked of rotting citrus, but at least it kept the stench of the dead at bay.

  Nearby, she could see her soon to be ex-husband, his trollop secretary, and the plant manager engaged in a heated discussion. They had invited her to join their planning session, but she had declined. She wanted nothing to do with them.

  She was only here because of her children. The kids were with their lousy father when the dead had risen. In a panic, she had sped across town to this godforsaken orange juice factory, just to end up trapped with the man she loathed and his slut.

  Looking over her shoulder, she saw the kids playing with toys the whore had given them. The two boys happily chatted as they played, oblivious to everything around them. They had no idea that their father was a cheating bastard and that the woman they called Aunt Julie was a fucking bitch. They didn’t understand how much pain she was in and maybe they wouldn’t even care. They worshipped their father. That thought only fed her rage.

  She looked at the glass venetian blinds covering the window next to her. She could barely make out the outline of the dead creatures gathered outside her hellish prison. Fortunately, the iron burglar bars over the windows kept the zombies out, but they also trapped her inside.

  The stench of slowly decomposing citrus was so terrible she pulled the collar of her gray sweatshirt over her nose. It was stained and worn. But then again, so was she. After marrying, she had hacked off her long tawny tresses, tossed out the makeup, and settled into a comfortable life of being a mother and wife. She had done everything she could for the good-for-nothing and now he was divorcing her.

  Scowling, she observed her husband as he spoke passionately to the other two adults. Some stupid plan about climbing onto the roof and lowering everyone down onto a truck with a rope was taking form. They were all idiots.

  “We can break the windshield, crawl in, and get it started. Yeah, that will be a little dangerous, but the truck is high enough off the ground that they won’t be able to reach us. They don’t climb. We’ve seen that,” her husband said.

  She scoffed at his words. He always had to be in charge. What made him think he was the big hero now?

  Annoyed, she took a step closer to the window. The blinds were stuck and not completely closed. A chewed-up face with one eye missing growled at her as it pressed against the bars.

  The laughter of the kids as they played angered her. They believed their father would save them. They weren’t even paying attention to her. They didn’t care about her and her pain.

  Rage burned in her soul.

  They all thought they were so safe behind these bars. What was worse was that they all believed her stupid husband could actually save them from the hungry mouths of the walking dead. It disgusted her how her kids believed their daddy was so wonderful. She was the one who always took care of them. She was the one who gave them life.

  Discreetly, she slipped her fingers over the edge of the blind slat, wagging them in the face of the zombie.

  It snapped its jaws at her.

  A dark and evil, yet wonderful idea unfurled in her mind. It pushed through her red hot anger and spread through her like cold water.

  Glancing over her shoulder, she glowered at the happy little scene of her children playing in the shadow of their father. How easily they ignored her. How easily they pretended she didn’t matter. That she didn’t exist.

  How dare they ignore her.

  She returned her gaze to the snapping teeth, her fingers scant inches from their broken edges.

  Yes, it could be over. A little bite and her troubles would be done. Just a little nip on the end of a finger. No one would notice until it was too late.

  And then they would not be able to ignore her. They would all see that her stupid husband’s plan would fail.

  They would all die.

  She pushed her fingertips closer to the desperate mouth of the zombie.

  Alan was tired. Tired to the very marrow of his bones. Every muscle in his body ached and his head was pounding. Yet, it didn’t matter. He had to stay alert. He had to keep going. He had to find a way to save the people who were depending on him. He had to save his kids.

  The smell of rotting citrus burned his nostrils as he spoke with the others about a possible escape route. The decaying fruit kept at bay the reek of the dead outside the chained factory doors. He wasn’t sure which was worse: the smell of the shambling, ravenous dead or the slowly-decomposing oranges in the crates.

  Nearby, his two boys were playing with truck models that Julie, his secretary, had given them. The small trucks sported the logos of the orange juice companies to which the factory had provided juice until the dead decided to get up and attack the living. The models had sat on shelf in his office for years, but now they were the only toys his children possessed. The twins always played well together and he could hear Parker explaining to Hunter that the binder clips from Julie’s desk were zombies and they had to run them over with the trucks and squish them. Meanwhile, Alice, his baby girl, was asleep on the sofa in his office. He could see her through the open doorway. Her little pink mouth was pursed in her sleep and one little hand was tucked up by her tawny curls.

  Nearby, the wife he had been divorcing sulked in a dark corner of the big building. They had invited Debbie to join their planning session, but her response had been “I don’t want to be around your slut secretary.”

  Julie had almost burst into tears, but he had pulled her away before his ex could unleash more venom.

  Now, as they tried to plan a way to get out, he felt ill at ease. Something was amiss.

  Rob, the big burly plant manager, scowled slightly. He rubbed his scruffy beard with one hand as he considered
the plan. “So we climb down using ropes, huh? That may be tough on the kids and the women folk.”

  “They’ll have to go first. We’ll have to lower them,” Alan explained. “Then we’ll follow.”

  “I don’t know if I like the idea of standing on the back of a truck with the kids and...” Julie’s eyes flicked to the figure standing in the shadows near the windows. She lowered her voice. “She’s so mean and erratic.”

  “Do you think she’ll cooperate?” Rob didn’t look him in the eye.

  Debbie was a difficult subject for Alan, and people tried to avoid speaking about her in a direct manner to him. It was almost as if they were afraid if they spoke of her, she would descend on them like a summoned demon. She was embarrassingly-bold with her nasty temper.

  Alan pondered the question before shrugging his big shoulders. “I don’t know. But I don’t think she’ll hurt the kids.”

  “But what about Julie? She’s convinced you’re having an affair with her. She’s irrational about it,” Rob pointed out. “How many times did she drive down here to cause a scene?”

  “She even said that my baby isn’t my husband’s, but yours,” Julie whispered, tears threatening again.

  Julie was a tiny thing, pretty as could be, and often too sweet for her own good. It made all the men at the factory want to protect her. Seeing her with tears in her eyes brought out the big brother in Alan. He put an arm around her and gave her a little squeeze.

  “Don’t you worry about your little one, Julie. Your mama and your husband are taking care of your baby. I know it. And don’t let Debbie get to you. She’s been accusing me of fooling around since the day we got married,” Alan said.

  Julie stared up at him with her enormous brown eyes and sniffled loudly. “You think my baby and Tony are alive?”

  Alan lied to keep her calm. “Yes, I do.”

  “You could at least keep your hands off of her in front of the kids!” Debbie’s venomous voice raked him like a claw.