by Evans, Mike
Shaun brought the handle down, bluntly striking her in the forehead with the handle—one, two, three times. She slipped down, gripping his foot and giving Shaun the time that he needed. He tossed the axe to the side and pulled out his sidearm. When he pulled the trigger, nothing happened. Trying to keep himself from panicking, he looked down and saw that the safety was on—something he would not allow to be a problem ever again. He flicked it off, aimed again, and put a single, nine-millimeter bullet through her forehead, which then burst out of the back of her skull. Shaun felt her grip loosen, and she fell the twenty feet to the floor, her hands and legs sprawled out, her dead eyes no longer filled with anger and hatred. She landed on another Turned, crashing their heads together. The Turned she fell on rose back to its feet, throwing the corpse like a rag doll. She bounced down the stairs, knocking over more of the Turned who had followed the commotion. Both girls grabbed Shaun, dragging him backward onto the roof. Ellie ran to the access door and slammed it shut. She then took an arm’s length of rope and pushed it through where the lock would have gone, had there been one.
Just as she started to tie it, a burst of force came up from under the door, slamming it up a foot and knocking Ellie off of it. Tina and Shaun jumped on top of it putting every pound they had to help keep it closed long enough for Ellie, but the force to open it was never ending. Shaun yelled, “Tie it! Tie it now, before they get up here!”
Ellie scrambled on her knees back to the door, tying a knot on it as quickly as she could. She pulled a knife and cut the extra rope. The three sat, out of breath and staring at it; they knew what would happen if they forced it open. The beating and slamming to the door was persistent. Shaun said, “God, they don’t stop, do they? They just keep coming until they get what they want.”
They watched the rope anxiously, ensuring that it was not going to break. They pushed up to their feet, knowing how precious time was—and they weren’t about to waste it. They took advantage of the 360° view and looked around the city from where they stood on the roof. Numerous pools of blood stood out against the light color of the concrete street. Trails of red told the stories of the victims who bled out, only to rise again as one of the Turned.
They peered over the edge, staying silent and realizing that traveling by ground in the area was not an option. Tina leaned over, kicking gravel that flew off the roof and hit one of the Turned below who’d been waiting his turn to enter the building. The line stretched to the end of the street in a disorderly, hysteria-induced fashion. The man who got hit in the face with the pebble had the sense to look up, seeing the three young faces looking over the edge at him. He had a chin that looked as if it had been painted in blood. The blood continued past his chin, onto his white shirt, and down to his Levi’s. He screamed at the three of them, making them back up out of sight on the rooftop.
Tina yelled, “Oh my god—what a freak! What do we do? We can’t stay here forever!”
Shaun pulled her with him as he made his way to the opposite end of the building. “We run and get as far away from here as possible.”
Ellie looked at Shaun. “Run? Run? We’re on a roof, you realize that, right? What if we fall?”
Shaun sped up his pace, going into a full-on run even with the pack, two rifles, and an axe hanging from his shoulders. He went full speed until he got to the ledge, placing a foot on the lip of it, and propelling himself upwards and across the four-foot gap. He screamed in the air, “Don’t fall!”
Ellie and Tina shrugged, not seeing any options, and ran towards the edge. Ellie leapt first, followed closely by Tina. They jumped roof after roof, running the entire block from a second-story location. In a matter of a minute, the three had made it to the opposite end of the row of buildings. Then they stopped, taking a moment to breathe. Shaun set down the gear for a moment and massaged where the straps had been rubbing and burning into his shoulders. Ellie gave a thumbs up. “Great plan there, Shaun. That was a good time. Let’s go ahead and never do that again.”
Tina sarcastically raised her hand. “Oh yes, I second that.”
Shaun nodded. He was resting his hands on his knees until he pushed up and walked to the edge, keeping low until he was crawling army style. He peered over the roof’s edge, seeing that only a few stragglers who had came in late were roaming the streets below.
Tina crawled up next to Shaun. “So, what are we going to do now? I don’t see us having enough roofs to get out of town, much less get all the way to the woods.”
“We aren’t doing anything. I’m gonna run across the street to the car dealer and try to get us a vehicle. We can only hope that one of them has a full tank of gas in it.”
“You can’t drive, Shaun. It’s why I came with you, or did you already forget that?”
“Well, it doesn’t take a genius to start it and drive it to the side of the building, does it? After that, you can take over driving, and we get a brand new vehicle that we might be able to trust… unlike the van.”
Ellie said, “So how are you getting off of the roof, Shaun?”
Shaun walked to the far side of the building, looking down at a narrow rusty fire escape. “Well, this looks like it’s about a thousand years old.”
Ellie went to the gear, grabbing all of it and bringing it with her. “We aren’t staying up here and waiting for you. If you get seen and they come here, we are trapped. Show me how to shoot one of those guns or something.”
“They aren’t that easy to just learn, Ellie.”
“Then teach us dumbass.”
“I will, Ellie, but you need time. We need a place to do it. We need extra ammunition. We need every shot to not be a dinner bell telling those assholes where we are. We need to be smart or we’re not going to last very long.”
Ellie and Tina shook their heads affirmatively, knowing that he was right… not liking it, of course, and feeling useless and vulnerable because of it. Ellie said, “Well, if we can all make it across the street, what do we do then? I mean, if the place is locked up, what do we do?”
Shaun thought about it and realized that the day before was Sunday and they would have been closed per state law that you can’t sell a car on Sundays. Shaun pointed at the large picture window on the store. “Well, this is probably one hell of a bad idea, but we can break right in through the picture window; we’d have to be going light speed at that point.”
Tina spoke up. “Because… you’d be setting off an alarm and then you would be letting all of those things down the street know that there is a fresh meal. Damn!”
The three of them sat on the edge of the building, trying to figure out what the smart move would be but came up with little to make them feel better about what they should do. Ellie looked around at the roof they were on and then focused on a shed that had been placed near the north corner of the roof. She walked over, climbed on top of it, and lay flat; she peered through the scope of the rifle, which she carried with her. She inspected the building down the street from them. “Hey, guys! They have fire escapes and roof entrances.”
Shaun popped up onto the shed and looked through the scope at the building. It looked like their way into the dealership had pretty much been set in stone, unless they got stupid lucky and were able to get in through a side door. They gathered everything they could then Shaun put a small length of rope around the axe handle and slung it around his back. “Let’s get going. We don’t want to get stuck in rush hour.”
Tina sighed. “This is probably the first time ever that I would have preferred to go to school. Like, I totally would love to be sitting in a classroom being bored to death and talking with a friend about an uneventful weekend coming up.”
Shaun said, “Yeah, and this is just the second day. I hope they can cure this. I hope that they can end it either way.”
They started their descent down the fire escape steps. Shaun went first, then Tina, and Ellie last, one by one taking it slow and easy. They were doing their best to remain absolutely quiet. One of the Turned walked by
the alleyway, in no rush to get anywhere. The three stopped moving instantly and paused, afraid even to breathe. He held up a hand to be perfectly still. When it continued walking, Shaun motioned for them to go down a few more steps at a time. They made it to the ground, each of them thankful to be off the ancient fire escape. Shaun checked Ellie’s rifle and made sure there was ammo in it. “Even if you can’t hit them in the head, maybe a good miss hitting a knee cap or the neck would be just as useful for us.”
Ellie nodded, remembering what he’d shown her yesterday on the hill and realizing it’d be damn near useless with the fact that she couldn’t lie down and take her sweet time to aim. Tina said, “What about me?”
Shaun thought about her for a second and grinned, nodding. “Yes, you just try not to get eaten.”
“Ass.”
Shaun walked slowly toward the street and looked around the edge of the building, seeing that there definitely was still a mob of them trying to get into Bynum’s Hardware Store. He looked the other way, and it was deserted as far as the eye could see. He motioned for them to follow him, and they ran out into the street. They stopped behind a car and peered both ways one more time. He raised his hand to keep them from going, and when it looked to be as good a time as any, they made a break for it.
They sprinted the rest of the way across the street, their gear bouncing on their shoulders as they ran straight into the alley and out of sight. Shaun waited a moment, setting the ammo bag down and checked the front door handle. He twisted and it didn’t budge. “Shit, it’s locked.”
He kept low on his way back to the girls and walked straight past them to the side door. He tried the handle on it as well, to no avail; it was locked. He pounded on the door for a second. “Yeah, we aren’t getting through this thing.”
It was a metal door—the type to keep people out when they weren’t invited—and without a key, there was nothing they could do to open it. They made their way to the rear of the dealership and saw a pair of feet sticking out from behind the wall. Shaun brought up his rifle and walked around the edge of it, pointing where he thought one of the Turned would be sitting. There was no Turned there chewing on a human carcass as he expected. He turned his rifle the opposite direction, seeing nothing, and then focused back on the feet. His eyes walked up its legs to a bloody pair of pants that was missing a torso. He dry heaved for a second at the sight and the smell. Iowa’s warmer May month had done nothing to make it smell any better.
Tina and Ellie looked at Shaun then his face as they came around the corner themselves. When they saw the legs, they understood what he was freaking out about. Tina and Ellie joined in on the dry heaving for a moment before they backed away, shaking their heads. Tina got the furthest away from the legs and pointed. “That’s just messed up. Seriously. What the hell happened to normal? Do you remember normal? It’s definitely not a finding a half-eaten mechanic who was catching a smoke out back.”
Shaun stopped for a second, not liking what he was probably going to have to do. “Wait…” He held up a finger to give him a second. “Wait, what did you say?”
Ellie spoke, “You said a mechanic out back catching a smoke, right?”
Tina nodded her head, shrugging. “Yeah, you’ve never seen a mechanic smoke? Really? Do you two even live in Adel?”
Ellie, looking pale, smiled and hugged her. “Do you realize what that means?”
“That you’re dumb and you want to try smoking, maybe?”
“Gross! No! Mechanics have the worst hours, besides the car salesmen, right? So maybe there are keys in the pocket of his… of the pants.”
Tina smiled then instantly wiped it off of her face. “I’m not sticking my hands in the pants! No way.”
Ellie opened her mouth to say something smartass in nature and closed it, realizing that she didn’t want to do that task either. They both looked at Shaun, who wasn’t even going to debate the fact that he didn’t want to do it. He got down on one knee and patted the man's pockets until he felt what he was looking for. He opened it with a knife and pulled out the keys, bringing on a fresh bout of dry heaves. “That sucked something fierce.”
Shaun looked up, jingling the keys that he thanked God were not covered with blood or some other horrible thing. They walked back to the side door and tried key after key until one finally fit in the slot. Shaun twisted the door, and the three entered slowly, looking around the dark space. Shaun shined a flashlight around the space and realized they were in the office. They found a light switch and flicked it on; the halogen illuminated the room one by one until the yellowish glow was all through out it. After noticing that Shaun was still shining on the ground, she asked, “What are you doing, Shaun?”
“Making sure that there isn’t any blood anywhere.”
Tina pointed under a desk. “Better check over there too. I’ve had my fill of these things today. I’d love to be on our way home ASAP, if we can.”
Once they deemed the building safe, they found a locked box in the office with a label that read KEYS. Shaun grasped the crowbar that he’d picked up earlier and took a swing at the cheap metal box, smashing it open. Ellie laughed. “Good thing we didn’t pry it open using the crowbar part of it, huh?”
“Hey, it’s open, right? It’s not like there is anyone in here to ask for help.”
Shaun opened his mouth to continue his defense when a wooden door slammed open from the upstairs entrance. A greasy-haired man in his late sixties stumbled out wearing only a stained wife beater shirt that fell short of covering an impressive beer belly and a pair of what might have originally been white underwear.
Tina laughed at first sight, as did Ellie, but they both quickly came to the same conclusion that while this man looked like a slob, he was very much still dangerous as hell. This immediate feeling held true due to the fact that he was aiming a double-barreled shotgun dead center between the two girls. Shaun pressed his back against the wall next to the office door, staying out of view of the large man.
The girls flinched as if they were going to run for it, and the man finally spoke in a country twang accent. “Ya’ll can run, but I gots no problems with shooting me women, you hear me now?”
He cocked the hammers back and flashed a tobacco chewer’s stained smile at them. “Don’t let one dumb decision make ya ugly the rest of your lives. There’s enough buckshot in this here shotgun to make sure nobody gonna recognize you ever again.”
Ellie kept her hands up waving them. “They’re up. Relax, please. We are so sorry… we didn’t know anyone was going to be here.”
“So robbin’ a place that’s empty is a better thing. Is that how ya’ll justify shit?”
Tina said, “What I meant is, you’re the first person we’ve run into or seen who’s still alive.”
“Well, of course I’m the first you’ve seen. It’s not even six o'clock in the goddamned morning. The fucking town’s still asleep. Hell, the diner don’t open until seven on Mondays.”
Ellie looked over at Tina, whispering as lightly as she could, “I don’t think he knows.”
The man aimed tighter and stepped a foot closer. “What you whisperin’ about that you can’t go and let ol’ Walt know, huh?”
Ellie started, “You don’t know—I mean about the town. There was an outbreak and everyone in town is either dead or a zombie.”
“You damn kids; start smoking that marijuana… and I’ve seen Oprah. She said it’s one of them damn gateway drugs. Just the first step to a life of hell and regrets.”
Ellie said, “Uh, sorry… we aren’t on drugs. Would you look at us? Do we look like junkies?”
Walt looked down and up at the two teens, seeing that they did appear healthy. He took a second glance at Tina, concluding she was very healthy indeed. “Well, if yous ain’t on the drugs then you are one of two things. I guess you know that.”
Tina said, “What’s that?”
“Well, it ought to seem pretty damn simple. I can explain it though. You see, I figure you are ei
ther real stupid—which I don’t think either of you are—or you two are a couple of goddamn car thieves.”
The man approached the two, forcing them to back up away from the open office door. When he stood under the yellow lights, the girls could really see the man’s darkened red face, which was most likely normal for him, based on the drunken slur of his voice. “So, what is ya? Car thieves? And where in the hell is everyone who opens the shop for me? Bunch of no good, lazy bastards. I should fire the whole lot of ’em, damn it.”
Ellie said, “You don't understand. If you just look outside, you’ll see what I’m talking about. You’ll know what's happening and that we aren’t thieves… well, maybe we are, but we figured anyone still in town is one of the dead, the Turned, the zombies.”
“Zombies? Like the Romero type?” The man lowered the gun for a moment, extending his arms, mimicking the ancient zombies incapable of running and only interested in brains.
Ellie shook her head no, speaking before she could think. “Oh hell, no. Those kind of zombies would be easy to deal with. You’ve got to be kidding me. These things are like wolves hunting in packs; they’re killers out for blood and they don’t care who or what is in their way.”
The man shook his head up and down real slowly, trying to take in what the young woman was saying to him. “You know, I kind of do think that you just might be insane.”
Shaun who’d had the rifle aimed at the back of the man’s skull was done being patient; every minute they spent in town was just one more where someone or something was going to come after them. He stepped up slowly and silently behind the old man as Walt continued with his drunken tirade. “Well, what do I do to you? What am I supposed to do? If I let you go, you’ll just come back… your kind always does. I’m calling the cops, damn it.”
Shaun got within a foot of the man and placed the end of his barrel up next to the man’s head, parting his bushy, greasy hair with it. He pushed it firmly against his skull and said, “Sir, if you somehow missed all of the carnage and death that happened on Sunday, you should consider yourself lucky. But one thing you should do first is lower that shotgun. You’re currently aiming at two of the few things I have left to care about in life.”