America the Dead

by Joseph Talluto

  They both retrieved their long guns and readied themselves on both sides of the RV. I went back up to the front and positioned myself next to Nate. A thoughtful gent had made a portal in the windshield which could be opened to allow front firing. It saved me the trouble of trying to lean out the side window and possibly get grabbed from behind.

  We followed Route 30 as it wound around a bend and straightened out. Slowly coasting down a small hill, we eased into the center of Dyer, which had several roads intersecting in one place, making for a huge intersection. Brick buildings surrounded us and there were a couple of state-line cigarette shops within view, as well as a gas station. The road we wanted to head down was directly ahead, down a hill and under a viaduct.

  Unfortunately, that road was occupied by about a thousand zombies, whose heads turned as one to see the big vehicle lumbering through their town.

  Nate and I ducked down and I signaled to Tommy and Duncan in the back to get out of sight. Zombies will be attracted to movement, but if they don’t see or smell prey, they aren’t likely to attack. If they can’t see the driver of a car, then they will generally let it pass. Tinted windows were very handy with zombies. Since we were high enough, we were able to duck down and stay out of sight. They could still inspect the vehicle, but if we could keep them from swarming, we wouldn’t have to stop. If we got stopped and they thought there was food inside, it was going to get ugly in a hurry.

  Nate had the worst of it, since he had to try and drive from the floor. He was cramped up and waiting instruction as I moved further back to guide him out of sight.

  “Keep it straight,” I whispered, watching as we moved into the zombie horde. The RV was barely moving, but we were making progress. I could feel the RV shift a little under my feet as we ran into zombies, pushing them out of the way with the plow in front, knocking them into other zombies. Glancing out the back window, we left a wake of tangled arms and legs.

  “To the left. Left. Your other left!” I whispered hoarsely and winced as we nailed a Z head on. The RV lurched slightly as we ground the ghoul into the road.

  Nate shook his head as an apology and corrected the big vehicle.

  “Turn it back more. More. Good. Hold it—run it back a bit—hold it… okay, let it straighten. Okay, good. Now to the right, keep going.” I tried to steer us around the larger groups of zombies, kind of like steering a ship through an ice flow.

  We kept this up for nearly twenty minutes and I could see the raised arms as we passed the crowds. They seemed to sense that something was wrong with a big vehicle moving on its own, but they were too stupid to connect the dots. Which was fortunate for us since there were enough of them to stop us cold if they swarmed all at once.

  The zombies weren’t the only problem. We had to steer around abandoned cars, which added more stress to our trip. Luckily, we managed to get through the worst of it, then the way cleared for a bit.

  “You can get up now,” I said, returning to my seat. Nate levered himself back into the driver’s seat and shook his head at me.

  “Let’s try not to do that again,” he said, looking at the shambling horde behind us.

  “With the hill, there was no way to reconnoiter. Be grateful we managed to get through unseen.”

  “That is true.” After travelling for about twenty minutes, Nate looked over to the right and pointed at what appeared to be a middle school. “Looks like there might be survivors,” he said as he pulled in to the school’s parking lot.

  I looked over the building. The windows looked to be reinforced from the inside and the doorways I could see were all blocked from the inside as well. It was close to the hordes we left behind, but any survivor was worth making contact with.

  I moved back to get my gear and ran into Tommy and Duncan.

  “What’s up?” Duncan asked, checking the magazine in his sidearm.

  “School looks like it might have survivors, or at least have been a place where people holed up. Probably nothing, but worth checking out.” I took my faithful pickaxe out of the closet, checked my knife for clearance, and made sure my pistol magazine was full. Tommy went through the same checklist before we stepped outside. There were a few zombies across the road and they started moaning when they saw us, but since there was a fence between us and them, they weren’t any real danger.

  We moved up to the building and saw the front door was completely blocked on the inside. Circling quickly, we moved around the building and checked out the other entrances. All of them were blocked, but based on personal experience, I had to figure they had to have an easy way in and out. The windows near the ground floor were all blocked and covered over, so they wouldn’t have been used. I started to look up and that’s when I saw the door for the roof access by the gym. Following the progression of floors, I figured that in order to get in, I had to get on the roof. Looking around with new knowledge, I saw a dumpster out of place by the building and a sturdy wooden box on top of it.

  I tapped Duncan on the arm and he scampered over to the dumpster and climbed up. Tommy and I kept our rifles at the ready, me pointing at the roof and Tommy making sure we weren’t surprised. When Duncan stood on the box the edge of the roof was just over his head, making easy access for a live person, but impossible for a zombie. He climbed up and with a quick look around, signaled us to follow.

  We looked for signs of violence on the roof, but finding none we went over to the door and tried the handle. It opened easily and we all stepped back as the door swung wide with a squeak. Training my rifle at the dark opening, I flicked on my combat light and stepped into the dark. I stayed to the right to give Tommy a clear line of fire and Duncan brought up the rear.

  We descended into the gloom and found ourselves in a power room. I guessed this was a custodial room based on the mops and cleaning supplies scattered about. I didn’t see anything that indicated the presence of zombies, so it was So Far, So Good.

  Descending another small flight of stairs brought us to what looked like a P.E. teacher’s office and we approached another door. I assumed this one would bring us to the gym. We doused our lights and stood by the door, listening intently for sounds of activity. We had made it so far without detection and didn’t want to be shot for popping up in the middle of a council meeting or something.

  Hearing nothing, I opened the door slowly and stepped out of the way as Tommy brought his rifle up. Nothing appeared out of the gloom and we could see fairly well, thanks to the skylights in the gym ceiling. There were piles of clothing, food and water bottles, tools and equipment. I saw bags of seeds and dirt, mixed in with bags of rice and flour. In one corner were weapons of various types, from hand axes to what appeared to be spears, of all things. Baseball bats were in abundance and there were modified hockey sticks as well.

  There was still no sign of violence, so we moved to the door and the common area. Opening the door, we looked into a vast dark room, with no lights at all and vaguely familiar smell. This seemed to be where they had their meals, judging by the stacks of full garbage bags in the corner. Still no signs of violence, although there were some unidentifiable dark streaks on the walls. We moved near the office area and someone had written “Armory” on the glass of the office. I nodded to Tommy who went to take a look. He emerged a few seconds later and shook his head.

  I started to get that old familiar creepy feeling in the back of my head and figured if this place was occupied by the living, we should have known it by now. We moved around the hallways, checking each classroom. Every single one showed signs of occupancy, with sleeping areas, stacks of clothing and food supplies. Not a single one showed violence, though. It was if the whole place had simply up and walked away.

  Duncan shook his head at me and I nodded. He was feeling the same creepiness about the place as I was. We followed the hallway as it went around the whole building and found ourselves back in the commons. We didn’t find a single person or a single reason for the place to be empty. We went up to the second floor and found m
ore of the same. But the last room had something and Tommy was the one who found it.

  “Hey, come here,” he whispered. He was holding a sheaf of papers that looked to be some kid’s drawings.

  “What do you have here?” I asked as he handed the pictures to me.

  “Some kind of answer, I think,” he said.

  I looked at the pictures. The first one showed what seemed to be a family of four, but the little boy’s face in the picture was colored green. The second one showed the little boy jumping at his father and there was lots of red crayon used in that picture. The next picture showed the school and just the mother and the daughter. Guess we can figure what happened to the dad and son, I thought. The next couple of pictures showed people living in the school, which seemed normal, but the last picture made me cringe. It was a close up of a zombie face, complete with black lips and bared teeth. The yellow eyes and green skin really set it off and I had a pretty good idea of what might have happened here.

  I showed the picture to Duncan and he winced. “Not pretty. Wonder if that was her mother.”

  I hadn’t thought of that. Not a good thing for a kid to see, but it was a rare thing to find anyone not scarred by the Upheaval.

  “What’s that at the bottom?” Duncan asked.

  I looked and there appeared to be some sort of writing at the bottom. It was just a string of the letter ‘E’, whatever that was supposed to mean. I put the pictures down and we moved back into the hall. Duncan was ahead of me and at a dead stop, so I bumped into his back.

  “What?” I whispered, looking left and right.

  “I saw something move,” he replied, aiming his rifle down the hall. The signs on the walls indicated the media center was that way. There was more light up here because the windows weren’t covered and I could see a window through the double doors that led to the library. I was about to kid Duncan when a shadow moved across the window.

  “Roger that. I just saw it too.” I brought my rifle up and watched the door window closely.

  Tommy sidled out into the hall and saw us with our guns up. He covered the opposite direction and asked, “What’s up?”

  “Movement in the library.” Duncan moved forward and headed to the doors. I covered him and Tommy stayed back to watch the hallway. We moved silently across the carpet, checking the classrooms quickly but finding nothing.

  About ten feet from the door, I realized the doors opened outward, so anything in there could easily get out if the way wasn’t blocked. We closed the distance and that’s when our luck ran out. Duncan was so focused on the door that he didn’t watch where he was walking and managed to kick a small truck across the floor and into the door.

  BANG! went the truck and all of us hunched down as if we had been struck. We froze in silence and Duncan shook his head in apology. I waved him off as a new sound emerged from behind the doors.

  It was an eerie, high pitched noise, like someone was playing with a mangled chew toy. It was a wheezing sound and very unnerving. I looked over at Duncan just as his face fell and backed up a step.

  “Oh God. We gotta go,” he said as he continued to back up.

  “What? What aren’t you telling me?” I said, gripping my gun tighter.

  “Remember the picture? Remember the letters on the bottom?”

  Then it hit me. The letters were the sound that particular zombie made, the sound we were hearing right now. The sound coming from behind those doors.

  Just as I stepped back, the door burst open. About ten zombies fell out of the opening and more were behind. In front of them was a small girl, about ten years old and as dead as they come. But she glared at us with yellowed, glowing eyes and her blackened lips were split to reveal dark and bloodied teeth. She saw us and quickly moved forward, her fetid breath wheezing through her teeth, causing that high-pitched song of death. Behind her, several zombies got to their feet and moved forward, not making a sound. To a person, they had all had their throats ripped out, compliments of the little demon in front of us.

  “Go. Now,” I said as I turned and bolted at Tommy. Duncan didn’t need to be told twice. He pivoted and ran and Tommy led the way as the horde came after us. The little girl zombie was by far the quickest and she moved with a speed that was scary. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how all these people died. Probably the kid was a rescue that came in infected and when she turned, which was probably at night, she started tearing apart her saviors.

  That revelation didn’t help me run any faster, or give me a good position to fight her off. By the time I was done dealing with the little monster, the others, who I saw were fairly fast themselves, would be on me.

  We literally jumped down the stairs and tried to secure the doors, but they had no handles at all and swung both ways. The delay in checking the doors was costly, because the little zombie slammed against them as we tried to find a way to secure them. I held the two doors and shouted at the others.

  “Get out, don’t waste your time grabbing anything. Just get to a safe position to cover me!” I yelled.

  “Ain’t leaving you, man. We don’t work that way,” Duncan said as he held the other door. Tommy nodded as he gripped his rifle.

  “Get your asses out, I ain’t planning on dying today. I’m just gonna time this to knock the little bastard on her ass and buy us some room.” I didn’t have much, as I could hear the other zombies falling down the stairs in their pursuit. The little Z scrabbled at the door and I could hear her frenzied wheezing as she tried to get us. “Go! Make a path for me, I’ll be along in second.”

  Duncan nodded and pulled Tommy along with him. Part of me was touched that they were reluctant to go, but I was heartened they thought enough of me to figure I’d be okay. But I needed to give them time to get out and they needed to make sure I had a clear path to get away as well.

  No sooner had they moved away then the door shook as the little Z ran into it again. I could see the top of her dead head through the small square window and for whatever reason, she chose that moment to stare up at me. I looked into those dead eyes and realized once again how people could fall prey to these things. Looking into those eyes was looking at death, both figuratively and literally. But they were lethal in their intent and that was what kept me from succumbing.

  The little Z hissed at me and pounded at the door. Behind her the first of the horde was picking themselves up off the floor after they had fallen down the stairs. Some of them had broken bones, so arms were at awkward angles and some feet were twisted in crazy directions.

  I had one shot at this so I waited on the other side of the door and watched as the little Z charged again. Just as she hit the door I kicked it with everything I had, slamming her back and into the feet of the followers. I didn’t bother to check my handiwork, I just turned and ran.

  As I cleared the gym doors I heard the sound of a door slamming open and the dreaded wheezing again. I ran as hard as I could across the gym and through the open P.E. office doors. I swung them shut behind me, but as the door nearly closed, a thin hand shot through the opening and began to pull the door back open. I bolted up the stairs and had the distinct pleasure of hearing that awful wheezing following me up.

  I had no room to stop and fight and so I kept moving, charging up the next flight of stairs with that little demon right on my heels. I swore to myself that as soon as I got some distance and a little room, I was going to unsling my pickaxe and let that little bitch have it right between the eyes.

  I jumped through the roof access door and flung it closed behind me, but sure enough, the little stinker hit the door just as I thought it was going to close and started squirming her way out onto the roof. I jumped down into the dumpster and in a spectacular display of agility, managed to trip off the dumpster and land sprawling onto the ground. I picked myself up as the dumpster banged again, this time with the wet sound of a zombie landing on its face. I looked over my shoulder to see the little Z getting back to its feet only to fall off the dumpster on
to its face again. I didn’t waste time and ran like hell to the front of the building, closely pursued by the zombie. If it wasn’t the fastest zombie I had ever seen, it was pretty darn close.

  I managed to get a little ahead of the Z and was vastly relieved to see the RV idling in the parking lot. I sprinted for the open door and dove through, letting Tommy slam the door shut behind me.

  I lay on the kitchen floor panting heavily as the sound of little fists pounding on the door reverberated through the RV. I looked over at Tommy and Duncan and grinned.

  “Thanks for the pathway. If I had to stop to open the doors, that little shit would have taken a chunk out of my ass, no pun intended,” I said between gulps of air.

  Tommy smirked. “Any more of those little monsters and we all would have been meat.”

  Duncan helped me to my feet and I slapped him on the back in gratitude. I went up to the front of the RV and sat next to Nate.

  Nate looked over at me and arched his eyebrows. “No supplies or anything? I’m surprised. Was anything in there?”

  I just looked at him and continued looking at him as a thump sounded on the windshield. I didn’t avert my eyes when I saw Nate recoil from the nasty thing that was trying to gnaw its way through the glass of the windshield.

  “Nothing too bad,” I said. “Just some art work and school supplies.”

  Nate looked over at me like I was nuts, but his eyes drifted back to the horror that was clawing at the glass and snapping its teeth in frustration. I ignored the noise outside the window.

  “Oh, yeah. There was some minor difficulty in securing any usable supplies, but I’m sure we could all go back in and sort it out,” I said calmly.

  Nate winced as the foul little Z started licking the glass in anticipation of the food it saw in the vehicle and I chose that moment to look over at the little zombie. I looked back at Nate and said, “Got any wiper fluid? You seem to have gotten a pretty big bug stuck on the windshield.”

  Nate actually sprayed the washer fluid and tried the wipers before he realized what he was doing and stopped it immediately. The wipers streaked the zombie spit all over the place and made a mess.