It shuddered as it hit the ground, its bones shattered under the impact, and yet, it still tried to rise again. Gaia was terrified. Before it could move again, however, Nick stood over it and stomped the zombie’s skull with his boot as the head exploded under the repeated impact.
“Nick!” Gaia yelped, gaining his attention. “It’s dead,” she mentioned with wide eyes. Once he acknowledged her, she spun and raced to the driver side door, which clicked open. Adam, breathing heavily, smiled meekly back at her. She immediately recognized that he was not well.
As he unbuckled his seat belt, he stared up at Gaia and forced a smile. “Hey there. Guess the airbags don’t work,” he said, forcing a modest smile. Something was not right with him, she knew immediately.
“Oh my god! Are you okay!?” she asked, leaning over him in the driver seat and hugging him. She pulled him in tight and could not help but brush against him, recognizing at once that his skin was notably warm to the touch. “Adam, you’re burning up.” He looked back at her and drew in a deep breath, nodding.
“I feel like hammered shit,” he admitted, frowning. “Something’s wrong. But I wanted to make sure you were okay. Phones aren’t workin’ either, right?”
She shook her head at his question and then felt overwhelmed as a myriad of emotions flooded her mind and body. A tear ran down her face at the common love that the two of them shared.
Gaia heard something in the distance, grunts and such that could not have come from human or animal. She counted three more of the zombie-children racing toward their position.
“We need to get to the bus there,” she said aloud, looking back to Nick and then staring into Adam’s baby blues. “C’mon, sweetheart. We have to go.” Adam stumbled out of the car and, holding her hand, ran after—or rather was pulled by—Gaia, who dragged him along after her.
The trio made their way across the lot and arrived in unison at the center bus. Three zombies sprinted after them, recklessly slamming into the side of the bus, and thankfully slowing their pursuit. As Nick made it inside, he paused and waited for her and Adam to enter. Gaia shoved Adam ahead of her and into Nick’s waiting arms as he aided the stumbling man into the bus. Gaia bounded in after him, just as the first zombie appeared from around the corner.
She felt the breeze generated by a swipe as the closest zombie reached for her. She panicked, tripping up the three steps and felt a hand on her right leg. She closed her eyes and kicked with the opposite foot, finding the resistance of a body, her heel connecting with the jaw of the undead abomination.
But the grip was unrelenting.
“No!” she screamed, flustered by the fact that this thing was mere seconds away from tearing flesh from her leg. She heard another shot that rang out loudly and she felt the grip on her leg loosen and give way. She felt hands on her, pulling her in and heard the bus door close.
Gaia opened her eyes to see Adam standing over her, a gun in his hand, his arm shaking to steady it before collapsing onto his rear end. Nick was now behind her, leaning against the door, keeping the remaining zombies at bay.
“Holy shit,” she mumbled, swallowing hard.
“Nick needs…help,” Adam said, collapsing against a seat. He looked terrible.
“Gaia! The latch!” she jumped over Adam’s legs and stumbled down the steps to throw the latch on the side of the door. As she did, the glass in the door shattered and a hand grasped Nick’s arm.
Gaia ran back up and looked around, seeing a fire extinguisher. She grabbed it and swung it down onto the attacking zombie’s arm. It snapped under the impact and Nick stumbled backward into Gaia.
“You all right?” she asked Nick, who nodded, backing his way up and into the driver seat as probing arms continued to reach for them. “How about you, Adam?” He nodded meekly, handing Gaia his gun.
“I only had one bullet left.”
“It’s okay, sweetie. You saved my life.”
“We got more company coming,” Nick said, trying to stand as he peeked out the front window.
“How?” Gaia asked, her eyes falling over the horizon where she saw more of the zombie creatures heading their way.
“The sound of the gunshot?” Adam offered as an explanation. “I think that they are drawn to noise. When I started up the Mustang, a buncha’ those assholes came runnin’. It’s only a theory.”
Gaia stared into his eyes and saw that the familiar blue was surrounded by a sickly red color.
“I don’t feel good. I’m hot and then cold. I got a bad feeling about—“
“Hey, it’s gonna be fine. You’re gonna be fine,” Gaia interjected, the sounds of the zombies trying to enter the bus contradicting her very sentiment.
“We’ll need to get rid of these two, I’d say,” Nick mumbled, also still weakened by his shoulder injury. He had lost a good deal of blood, Gaia saw, staring at the torn fabric covering the bite wound, which was soaked with crimson stains.
“Yes, and then I need to take a good look at your wound more closely,” she replied, glancing around as she stood. She unhooked the clasp on her belt, reaching for the knife handle, but stopped as her eyes fell over a lengthy and weighty-looking crowbar. She picked it up and lined the business end up with a zombie, placing a hard thrust through the zombie’s neck.
It gurgled subsequently, uttering a few dreadful noises after Gaia retracted the bar, but continued trying to force its way into the bus. Its sheer strength was beginning to buckle and bend the steel of the door. The one behind it, not smart enough to work in conjunction with its fellow undead monstrosity, pushed against the first.
Gaia immediately repositioned her strike and thrust it through the creature’s eye this time, where the steel easily penetrated the fleshy housing and the creature slumped motionlessly to the ground. She waited for the other one to climb over its fallen companion and repeated the procedure.
“Everyone get to the back and stay quiet,” Gaia said, watching the half dozen zombies outside, still searching for the source of the sound. The trio quietly slinked back toward the center of the bus, took seats and waited.
Gaia could hear the sounds of movement outside the bus, but after what seemed an eternity of remaining still, the noises dissipated. She dared a surreptitious glance outside and saw nothing and no one around.
“Okay, I think they are gone.” But, before she could even shift in her seat, she heard the meager sound of repeated banging on the window right beside her.
Gaia’s heart almost leapt out of her chest as she recoiled and nearly fell out of her seat. When she looked, realizing that the window was about eight feet off the ground, she recognized the familiar face of Maye, the recently missing capuchin.
“Get in here,” she stated, opening the window and letting the monkey in and climb onto her shoulder. She held up her hand and the monkey high-fived her.
“Now lemme have a look at that wound, Nick,” Gaia said, sliding into the seat next to him. She untied the knot under his arm, then had to slowly peel back the now-sticky fabric, caked with dried blood, and confirmed what she had initially seen, which was that a large hunk of flesh was torn mostly free. She had seen wounds before, had treated the animals in the zoo on many occasions, but this was truly gruesome and she almost vomited, but held it back.
“It’s bad, right?”
“Nothing I can’t handle. But, we need meds. And as I said, we really need to stitch it.”
“I have a bottle of antibiotics left over in the car, along with some pain reliever,” Adam said. “But it’s way over there.”
“Well, looks like Maye and I are going, then. Or at least, I am going,” she said, looking to the capuchin who remained silent in the rear of the bus.
“I’ll go with you,” Adam said bravely. Gaia shook her head, saying nothing at first.
“You're in no shape to do that and you know it, hon. Just sit tight and I’ll be back.” Adam tried to stand and immediately fell back into his seat. He was about to protest verbally, but no words escap
ed his lips.
“Remember, there’s predators roaming free out there. Animals and…whatever the fuck those things are.”
“Zombies,” Adam said. “I heard the word mentioned in one broadcast before I took off here to find Gaia. “One man, an expert in science, called them zombies. That was right before the TV station went to static.”
He adjusted himself in the seat and then, unable to get comfortable, simply lay down, stretching his legs to the adjacent seat across the aisle.
“Right, zombies,” Nick reiterated. “Be careful, Gaia.”
“You know I will, Nick. Besides, the Mustang is right there,” she said pointing across the lot to the car. It was a couple hundred paces away and she saw nothing around. Adam’s prized jet-black Mustang GT was a wreck in the front, the grill smashed and the passenger side headlight along with it.
Gaia kicked something as she took her next step and found a lunch box on the floor. She opened it up and found a juice box and, as luck would have it, an ice pack, which she handed to Adam. “Keep this on your head. I’ll be back.” Adam again nodded his consent, though she could tell he was not happy about her decision.
As Gaia unhinged the locking mechanism on the side and pushed open the door, she paused, listening for sounds. She could hear animals in the zoo crying, growling and roaring their protest against what she considered the exact opposite of nature’s glory—the living dead. These creatures were the most unnatural things to ever set foot on earth’s soil. She listened for another minute and nodded her head in agreement of the animals’ plight.
They have every right to bitch about it.
Something that awakens from the dead was the most malevolent thing she could think of. Zombies, recollecting from what she had seen in movies, were things that came back from the dead, or—she paused suddenly, as a specific detail of zombie lore popped into her mind—they changed after being bitten.
Gaia’s hairs stood up on the back of her neck and arms as the chills washed over her.
Nick was bitten!
She turned and was about to make her way back onto the bus, but again she paused.
What am I gonna do? Kill him? He hasn’t turned yet, either. Most of ‘em turn fast in the movies.
No, she decided. She would watch him carefully after she returned from getting the supplies out of the car. She turned and headed once again in the direction of the Mustang. It was getting to be dusk now and Gaia hadn’t even realized that, in all the commotion, the entire day had gone by. She made her way slowly and quietly across the barren lot, and as she did so, she could not help but liken it to being naked in front of a crowd of strangers.
She was completely exposed. In the distance, she saw the results of what could only be described as chaos. There was gore and body parts strewn about the path heading down and into the lot, she witnessed the carcass of a four-footed animal, which may have been a goat or a deer, she could not tell from this distance in the fading light.
As she made it to the vehicle, she opened the driver side door, which creaked loudly. That was when Gaia noticed the zombie. It was among the bushes where she and Nick had stood not all that long ago. It raced toward her, closing the gap quickly and making sounds that no animal or human could possibly make.
As she made to step inside, something grabbed her by the ankle and she again felt the beating of her heart as it threatened to jump right through her bosom and onto the car hood. She yelped involuntarily and looked to the ground to see a zombie hand wrapped around her ankle like a vise. She backed away and unexpectedly pulled the thing with her, as she reared the crowbar back in preparation for a strike.
And then she paused—more out of revulsion than anything else.
She looked down to see that the creature was torn in half and only the top torso, head and left arm remaining. It had somehow made its way under the car.
But, there was an instant of deeply founded mourning in Gaia’s heart, for just a fleeting second, realizing that this…thing…had been a young woman only a few short hours ago. The black lipstick upon its features that bordered its mouth was a stark contrast to the pale ash of its skin. She mouthed an appeal for forgiveness and drove the crowbar into the undead creature’s head.
She leaped into the vehicle, smacking her head in her haste to get away from the other, much more aggressive zombie, and her vision went fuzzy.
She shook away the dim vision and concentrated on the pain, using it to keep her bearings. She tried to slam the door shut, but felt the lingering grasp of the now unmoving zombie at her feet and slammed the door on it. Once, twice, thrice she tried in vain to close the door.
She saw stars again and felt the warm lifeblood spilling from her forehead and down her cheek. Then a fourth attempt as she felt the release of the dead thing’s viselike grip upon her ankle. She slammed the door shut just as the zombie reached inside the door for her.
Its fingers or hand were caught inside the door, crushed under the steel and bolts of the door frame. And it made no yelp of anger, no remorse as its hand was crushed inside the doorjamb, no indication of anything upon its face other than a wild-eyed look of something incapable of logic and reason.
In that moment, another realization washed over her. The zombie was pitiless and cruel, plain and simple. All it wanted to do—and the only thing in comparison she could think of was perhaps a shark—was feed. It seemed to want for nothing else. But, in that comparison, even a shark was sated after a meal, capable of going weeks without eating. Sharks also mated and bore offspring, unlike this…thing.
Zombies were unrelenting in their pursuit for flesh. Perhaps they could never feel satisfied, the hunger ever present? Maybe that was the curse which they had to endure. No one deserved that, she decided.
That was her last fleeting thought, she recalled, as the darkness swallowed her whole.
Chapter 3
The sound of glass shattering brought Gaia back to consciousness. She felt the breeze on her face as something swiped at her, barely missing, as she instinctively backed away.
Through cloudy vision, she witnessed a hand lash out at her and she recoiled again, widening the gap between her and her assailant. Was she dreaming? No, she realized, as the pain in her head was all too real. There was a zombie trying to get at her, trying to feast on her flesh.
She looked around as if suddenly remembering where she was. It was pitch dark outside and she had no idea how long she had been there. She tried to shake away the fuzziness in her mind’s eye, popping the latch on the glove compartment and retrieving a flashlight. Shining the beam of light around the interior of the space, she retrieved a first aid kit and a bottle of antibiotics. Recognizing immediately how light the container was, she shook it, confirming that there was only two, perhaps even three pills left.
A sudden panic flooded her thoughts as she wondered why no one had come to her aid. She was more than a little concerned now that perhaps something had happened to the others on the bus. As the zombie clawed and chomped at her over and over, Gaia felt around for and grabbed the crowbar, jamming it through the zombie’s skull.
She immediately became fuzzy again for a few moments under the exertion. Waiting until the dizziness passed, she found a plastic bag in the side of the passenger side door, tossed in the first aid kit, the antibiotics, and a few bottles of water she found under the seat and then clicked open the passenger side door.
She heard the sounds of the animals in the distance and silently vowed that as soon as Nick and Adam were better, that she would go back to see how her ‘other’ friends were doing.
She slowly maneuvered through the darkness, turning off the flashlight and using only the moonlight to guide her way. She stopped on more than one occasion, believing she’d heard something in the distance, but nothing approached.
She carefully reached through the broken glass pane on the door, pulled open the latch, pushed the door open and took a step onto the bus. She was met with the barrel of a rifle in her face.
“Shit!” Nick whispered, recognizing Gaia. “I’m sorry, I was out cold.” Gaia nodded and locked the latch again on the door and opened the bag.
“Found this,” Gaia said, holding up the first aid kit. “I’ll clean out your wound with some of the antiseptic. How is Adam?”
“He’s still asleep,” he answered. Gaia looked at him, remembering her concern about Nick’s zombie bite and shining the flashlight in his eyes. A moment of probing and she saw nothing out of the ordinary within them.
“I'm gonna check him out,” Gaia said, quickly forcing the subject from her mind and tossing him the bottle of antibiotics. “Take one of those. And there’s some pain relievers in the first aid kit, too, but nothing too strong.” She made her way to the back and stood over Adam, her love of six years and her crush for even longer. She was well aware of Adam’s intentions of asking her to marry him this Christmas in front of friends and family, which was only a month or so away. In her mind, and from the assessments of everyone that knew them as a couple, they were already engaged.
All those wonderful and hopeful thoughts flew from her mind as soon as she took in the sight of him in that instant. As she shook him, he did not move right away. She laid an open palm on his forehead and felt that he was burning up. Something was wrong, she feared, running back to the front of the bus and grabbing the bottle of antibiotics, and then racing back to him.
After a long moment of shaking him and calling his name, she was able to get a response. And in that response time, she managed to get some meds into him, chased by a full bottle of water. He was dehydrated, sick with fever, and she could do nothing about it other than what she had already done. She hoped it was enough.
“Sleep in shifts?” Nick asked her when she arrived at his side.
“I don’t think I’m gonna be doing much sleeping tonight,” she quipped as she began to clean his injured shoulder, starting with antibiotic wipes. To Nick’s credit, he barely winced or protested in the slightest. When she finally finished, feeling she had done the best job she could without sewing up the flesh, she looked at him for a few moments, still trying to decide if she should tie him up or not. Again, she pushed the notion away. He had shown no signs of becoming one of them.
Cage The Dead Page 3