"His was black," Darlene said matter-of-factly.
He grinned. "Well, no shit… sorry 'bout the language… I'll be painting it as soon as I get back home and making sure the gold eagle is touched up and fancy."
"Where's home?" She was waiting for some bullshit answer like Dallas or Oklahoma City.
"Swedesboro."
"Never heard of it," she admitted.
"South Jersey, nice and quiet. I just need to get back home and then I'll have time to paint my new car, wrangle up some horses, and plant some corn."
"Sounds like a plan." Darlene's stomach was growling. "Any chance you'd be willing to share some of your food with me? I haven't eaten in a few days."
"Need a ride? I could always use someone riding shotgun."
"Sure." Darlene didn't know what else to do, and she was getting sick and tired of walking. Two long weeks and she was still firmly inside New York State, and knew she'd been heading in an eastern direction due to zombies, road blocks, fires and hostile living people.
Now they were cranking tunes and driving way too fast.
"You said you had food," Darlene screamed over the guitar solo.
R.J. pointed a meaty finger behind him. "Grab whatever you want. The stuff is all over the place, but see if you can find me a beer. I should have a couple left."
She rummaged through some bags and found a warm can of cheap beer. "You probably shouldn't drink and drive," she said as she opened it for him. It was said as a joke but she was also concerned.
"Who's going to arrest me, the zombie police?"
"True." She found another beer and held that one for herself. "How bad are these cookies?"
"Stale as shit but still considered food."
"You know you have a bottle of wine?"
"Sweet. Bring it up, we'll cannonball it with the beers and get ripped."
She stuffed cookies in her mouth and washed it down with the warm beer. Not a bad meal when you hadn't eaten in days.
Darlene decided that she'd rather die drunk and full of stale cookies in a car crash than bitten and sexually abused by a dead person.
* * * * *
"Where are we?" she said, sitting up in the Trans Am. Her body was stiff. When she realized they were parked she slowly rolled out of the car and stretched her legs. It was nighttime.
R.J. tipped his hat. "Connecticut."
"I thought we were going to New Jersey."
"We are. But we can't very well swing through NYC and fight a zillion zombies, can we? Most of the roads were blocked off as we headed south so I had to turn west." He was siphoning gas from a pickup truck. "I'll fill 'er up and we'll be on our way."
"Did you search this place?"
"Nah, just stopped a few minutes ago and took a leak. You've been sleeping for about twelve hours."
"Maybe we should hide out until daybreak. It's probably not a good idea to drive at night, when you can't see far enough ahead."
"Agreed. Even with it being such a clear night, it was getting dicey there the last couple of hours. I just wanted to put some distance between us and that last city I skirted, because it was crawling with the dead. It looked like an ant swarm or cockroaches or something."
"Where are we?"
R.J. laughed. "In Connecticut. That's all I know."
They were parked right off an exit from a major highway in a strip-mall. The windows had all been smashed out, but nothing on fire. Darlene was thankful for that.
There was a pizza place, a hobby shop, a tanning salon, Chinese takeout, and a liquor store. "Finished with your wine?" she asked.
"Almost." R.J. finished filling the Trans Am. "Let me get my machete and we'll go look for something expensive. I prefer a white wine, if possible."
"Beggars can't be choosers," Darlene said. "We'll start at the end at the liquor store and work our way to some fine pizza."
The liquor store was open, all the glass doors and windows shattered. The shelves were empty, but they searched anyway.
"In every movie I ever saw about a zombie apocalypse, there is always a bottle of something for the heroes to find," R.J. said from behind the counter.
"Who says we're the heroes?"
"You think those things are the heroes? If that's the case, it means we're all fucked."
"We're fucked regardless." Darlene wished right now she had a flashlight, because scampering in the dark with glass everywhere was not a good move. Besides, she knew this was a bust.
"Did you hear that?" R.J. said at the same moment she heard the car engine.
* * * * *
"Two guys, ones big and looks like a biker, the other is small with glasses." Darlene leaned forward and watched the odd pair as they exited the beat-up station wagon.
"Are they heading our way?" R.J. asked.
"So far they're standing outside the car and whispering. I can't make out what they're saying." She turned to R.J. "I don't want to fight living people if I can help it. If they leave us alone I say we leave them alone."
"Sounds like a plan. The last time I ran into people they tried to shoot me and take the Bandit."
Darlene thought about the worst time she'd run into people and what they'd done to her, but she pushed it down, deep out of the way, before it consumed her again. No sense in dwelling on the past when the present was so fucked up.
They stayed in the shadows and waited. Finally, Darlene watched with relief as the two men pulled shotguns from the car but went into the hobby store a couple storefronts away.
When she told R.J. he nodded. "We wait them out."
Darlene was fine with that. Within ten minutes the duo reappeared, lugging large white boxes. "What did they find?"
R.J. took a peek and chuckled. "They're taking the comic books and baseball cards."
"Seriously?"
"Looks like it. Shit, if that place went untouched they might be in there for a couple hours between searching and loading up the station wagon."
"Great." Darlene wondered if there was someplace comfortable to crash in here until then.
"We need to leave," R.J. said suddenly.
"I think we just sit tight and the geeks will be gone stealing Iron Man comic books in a few. Then we can drive out of here."
R.J. began wringing his hands. "I need to get home."
"All in good time. Don't start freaking out," Darlene said. She casually moved away from him, making pretend she was looking for something they might have missed. "Did we check the stockroom?"
R.J. seemed to relax. "I'll do that. You keep an eye on those two."
Darlene hoped it would keep him busy and preoccupied until these guys left.
They were carrying out another two boxes and adding them to the back of the station wagon. She wondered what would possess them to take items that were worthless.
She could see loading up the car with boxes of canned food or gallons and gallons of water, but cards and comics didn't make sense.
Then again, what really did make sense these days? Dead people eating living people was pretty much out there in space as well. It felt like all the rules had changed, and you survived and that was the bottom line.
Darlene sat in the shadows near the front window and watched as the two continued bringing out their finds. She wondered what they'd been like before this happened. It was a safe assumption they'd been heavily into comic books and video games.
She remembered an old Saturday Night Live skit from years ago when William Shatner was at a Star Trek convention and he asked one of the geeky kids if he'd ever kissed a girl. Darlene wondered if either of them had, but with her luck they were more than likely psycho rapists. At this point, based on who'd she'd met so far in her journey, three out of four guys were horny serial killers.
For a second she just stared blankly when she saw the brake lights of the Bandit flash. By the time she stood and went to the doorway the car was driving away.
When the two guys came out, shotguns drawn, she faded back into the store and held the De
sert Eagle.
"Dumb wannabe hillbilly," she whispered.
The Trans Am shot out of the parking lot before he turned the headlights on.
After a minute the two guys went back inside to complete their mission.
Dying Days
One
Lazy Eye held the pistol to Darlene’s head and licked his lips. “I said to take your fucking clothes off.”
Darlene held her hands up and away from her body. “Is that a two-twenty six?”
Lazy Eye looked confused. He shook the pistol and motioned at her with his free hand. “I won’t ask again.”
“I think you’re right about that.” Darlene slipped her head down and to the left, bringing her extended fingers up and into his throat. Before he’d even stumbled she had gripped his arm, dislodged the pistol and heard his shoulder pop out of its socket.
Lazy Eye went to scream but she covered his mouth, drove her knee into his stomach, and picked up the pistol in seconds.
“Shut the fuck up or I will shoot you, motherfucker.” She had no intention of actually shooting him, since they were surrounded by undead. None of them were close enough to be an immediate threat, but they were there. The gunshot would get them moving toward her for miles out here.
Under her the man struggled vainly. Darlene pointed the pistol at his head and he finally took the hint and stopped struggling. “This is a Sig Sauer 226 model, and a nice one at that. You don’t strike me as being a Navy SEAL or a Texas Ranger, so I’m guessing you found it. Too bad. It’s an excellent piece. Mind if I keep it?”
Lazy Eye didn’t say anything. His good eye focused on her face before looking down at her dangling boobs at eye level. He licked his lips again.
“Idiot.” She sat up, pulled a hunting knife from her boot and shook her head. “Here you go; the last thing you’ll ever see.” With that she pulled her dirty T-shirt top up and revealed her tits to the man, who openly drooled on the ground.
“Nice, I know.” Darlene leaned close to him and just as his fingertip brushed against her hard left nipple she plunged the blade into his stomach and twisted. He gurgled as she drove the blade deeper into him and Darlene closed her eyes and tried to think of happy thoughts. She couldn’t and began to cry softly. As much as a scumbag as this guy was, he was still living and didn’t deserve to die. “Better you than me,” she mumbled. She cursed herself for not hearing him sneak up on her to begin with. So busy scanning the distance for the dead she’d not heard the living until he was on her.
At this point in the game the only people still living were usually those stealthy enough, fast enough or lucky enough to keep from being ripped apart. Lazy Eye had obviously been lucky until today.
She cleaned the blade on his clothes and checked him for supplies, food, anything. He had nothing in his pockets. His boots were too big for him and he wore three pairs of socks despite being out in the Florida heat of summer. “Where did you come from?” she whispered to his lifeless body before doing the horrific task of sawing through his neck with her knife to keep him from reanimating and trying to rape her again.
He looked decently well-fed and he’d bathed in the last few days. His underwear was clean and his shirt still had a slight laundry detergent smell to it, something Darlene hadn’t smelled in too long. He had a camp somewhere close, possibly a home where he had a makeshift washer.
She was in the dunes near the beach, with several undead lurking on the road behind her. Any noise would alert them. Darlene scanned the beach itself and watched as two zombies shambled from the surf and moved in different directions. They were everywhere.
Three days ago Darlene had cold-camped on a Georgia beach in a lifeguard chair. She’d woken to five zombies chasing after a child, no more than seven, down the sand. Before she could jump down and help three undead fell from the dunes behind her and gave chase as well. It was all she could do to sit in silence without making a sound as more and more came into view and went north in pursuit of fresh prey.
Now, she decided to journey the way Lazy Eye had appeared and see if she could find his camp. The going was slow, especially since she was trying to be as quiet as possible. A dead man, clothes shredded and covering only his shoulders, stumbled a few feet to her left and she froze. His penis was engorged with blood, rivulets dripping from its bloated head. He was one of the dangerous ones: the undead that still had a functioning sexual organ and would love nothing more than to use it on her, stretch her and rip into her and kill her. She shuddered at the thought.
Five tense minutes later he suddenly stopped and turned away from her and crashed through the sand toward the road. Darlene continued to move as the sun beat down upon her, sun-burnt and hurting. Six or seven months ago she was freezing, stuck in a blizzard during winter near Baltimore. She’d nearly died from sickness and watched as the living around her had succumbed to frostbite or the undead that hadn’t frozen. She imagined that by now they’d thawed out and were hunting for the living.
A service road came into view, devoid of immediate danger. She joined the sandy strip up into the dunes. From this vantage point she could see for miles: A1A ran from north to south, riddled with moving bodies; a small town was to the west, smoldering and destroyed; and to the north over a collapsed bridge stood a gas station, which looked intact from this distance. She decided to make for it. Maybe there was some food left over, a stray can of soda. Crumbs would suffice at this point. Darlene hadn’t eaten since yesterday morning and that meal was a rotting orange and some rain water. For weeks she’d stayed away from mirrored surfaces when possible, knowing that her once full figure was now a mess. “Even at the end of the fucking world you’re still worried about how your ass looks in a tight pair of jeans,” she whispered and grinned.
In order to get to the gas station she needed to traverse the broken bridge or wade through fast-moving sea water from the ocean. She didn’t know if she had enough strength to make it. That had never stopped her before.
Praying to a God she no longer believed in, she moved slowly in that direction, skirting the undead and glad that they were so spread out.
She wondered why there were so many zombies concentrated in this strip of land. Once she’d gotten safely across the river and onto A1A she thought she’d be safer. With the Atlantic Ocean to the east and the river to her west, land consisted of a block or two of houses in length at any given point, but where she stood there wasn’t much of anything but sand dunes. Usually the dead convened around destroyed towns, burnt-out buildings or car pileups.
There were no undead pulling themselves from the river as she stood on its banks. The bridge was unmanageable to cross, with a large chunk of it missing and presumably sitting at the bottom of the river. Darlene wondered how zombies could destroy a bridge like that, but decided that her fellow humans had most likely done the deed.
Most of the property damage she’d encountered since this had begun was man-made, with looting, raping and fires done without the zombies’ help. Man had turned on man. Instead of helping one another they’d decided to kill for that last scrap of food. Safety in numbers? Not if it meant having to share a can of soup. It was easier to bash your former friend and neighbor in the head with the can rather then sharing it.
With the sun overhead and the smell of the water before her, Darlene could almost imagine that everything was normal again. Somewhere a bird actually chirped and she could almost sense the fish in the water and the ants and spiders in the grass. She was on vacation with her father, enjoying the Florida beaches and the warmth before heading back to the harsh Maine winter. They would stop later and eat at an amazing local restaurant that sold fresh seafood platters, local beer, and had tiki torches and real palm trees adjacent to the open-air dining room.
She took in a deep breath to get the rich taste of suntan oil, mixed drinks and fried fish into her nostrils. When she choked on the stench of the undead moving silently toward her she sighed. The machete strapped to her back was quietly unsheathed and she
said good-bye to her father and her vacation dreams once again.
Two
He was alone and his skin was sloughing off from so much time in the seawater. His clothes were missing as well as his left arm and his hair. Darlene stepped back and took a swing with the machete, slicing through its neck like butter. She didn’t even wait for him to fall before turning and stepping into the cold water of the river.
How many had she dispatched since it began? How many zombies had she destroyed? How many of the living did she have to kill as well? Barry came to mind, but he was only one of a score of men and women she’d had to fight and put down to keep from being killed herself. The first to die by her hands had been her father…
“Enough of this shit,” she whispered and began moving into the water, holding her machete and two guns overhead. Luckily this was a small tributary of the actual river so she got chest-deep into it before it leveled out and she could start rising again. Her head bobbed left to right, left to right, prepared for a zombie to grip her ankle or shoot from the water. Instead, she stood on the far bank and looked around at more dunes and the sand-covered road that led to the gas station. This side of the bridge no zombies were shuffling about. She wanted to be as quiet as she could so that they wouldn’t be.
As she approached the gas station she held out the Desert Eagle in her right hand and the machete swinging in her left. She was as wary about zombies as the living at this point. Friends were few and far between. Darlene figured that if there was anything of value in the gas station she’d be fighting for it. Just another day in paradise.
A chain-link fence surrounded the property, barbwire strung across the top. There was no discernable gate as far as she could see. She hated being so exposed but no trees, bushes or even dunes were between the water and the fence.
Darlene hesitated before moving to her left and away from the road leading to the gas station. Behind the property the back road wound up over another, smaller bridge, leading to a two-story house. It, too, was boxed in with the fence. The road leading between the two buildings was fenced in as well. Whoever was up in the house was probably watching her. Even now they would be getting into position with a rifle if they had one, her head in the cross-hairs. She closed her eyes and counted to five.
Dying Shortly Volume 2 Page 2