The Walker Family Vacation (Episode 3)

by McRory, Shane

  She said, “I look about the same as the girls I go up against.”

  April nodded agreement, saying, “Okay, well, a divorced woman, mid-thirties—but keeping it together—wouldn’t say shit to you right now.”

  Sure, it was juvenile, but her aunt’s use of profanity got her to smile. April side-glanced to see if it worked or not, saw her niece smiling, and Stacy could see her aunt’s posture loosen up on her horse. In a conspiratorial whisper, her aunt asked now, “What do you think of Becca?”

  She leaned close to her and said, “Stuck up.”

  “Tell me about it. And that Woolly—what’s with that guy?”

  “I know. But he and Hunter have been friends like forever.”

  April got to the point now, saying in a more serious tone: “You didn’t want to bring anybody?”

  She shrugged. “Troy didn’t bring anybody.” Left unsaid: Why don’t you go bug him about it? But Troy was going through something right now. Just about kicked out of university in his first year, something wasn’t right with her big brother.

  April let it hang, leaving that long silent gap hoping that Stacy would fill it, start spilling her guts. But she rode it out, though—something good about being an insulated and quiet person, you didn’t often feel like you had to fill up those quiet spaces. It drove her aunt mad, April saying now, “I remember when I was your age that—”

  The horses up ahead had stopped. Becca and Tabby had brought their horses close together, and Becca was showing something to Tabby, the two of them practically with shoulders touching. Nessa, Randy’s wife, kicked her horse closer, seeing what was wrong with them.

  Whatever it was, they showed it to Nessa, and now they were both talking with her hands.

  April said, “What do you think that’s about?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, her most common refrain these days.

  April brought her horse up around the three other riders on the left side, and Stacy came up on the right, stopping beside her sister Tabby. “What’s going on?”

  Tabby looked worried, said to Becca: “Show her,” nodding her head Stacy’s way.

  Becca was clearly rattled by whatever’d happened; her cheeks had gone rosy, and her mouth hung open. She looked on the verge of crying. Now Becca held up her phone, wagging it, saying, “We’ve got . . . no service. It just . . . died—I was, I . . .”

  On the other side of Becca and Tabby, April said, “No phones, anyway, girls, c’mon, we’re out in nature . . .”

  Tabby defended Becca saying, “No-no, Aunt April, it was a call from her mom. She has to take a call from her mom . . .”

  Becca’s eyes bugged wider. Tabby’s stuck-up little friend didn’t look so stuck-up right now, she actually looked scared. Becca said, “I answered it . . . it was my mom. She said . . . she said . . .”

  Tabby urged: “Tell her, Becca . . .”

  “Said that she luh-loved me . . . said that she’ll always love me, and then . . . then there was yelling on the other end of the phone and then her phone—it dropped—and then . . .”

  When Becca’s ability petered out, maybe submitting to a kind of shock, Tabby took up the story’s reins saying, “The phone died while she was talking with her mom. We think her mom was getting attacked . . .”

  Aunt April was dubious but wary, saying, “Attacked—really? Becca—”

  Tabby said, “But now her phone’s dead. But then I checked mine and mine’s dead, too . . .”

  Now everyone was reaching for their phones, swiping them open and checking. Sure enough, Stacy swiped her phone open and checked the cell signal to see that it was zero. No service. April confirmed as well saying, “Yeah. No service. I can’t make a call . . .”

  Becca looked for hope, saying to April: “What does that mean?”

  April looked to Stacy, her thirty-five-year-old aunt, her mom’s younger sister seeming much younger and definitely not as capable as good old Mom, and looking like she didn’t know what to do right now.

  Big scruffy Randy’d doubled back now, coming to the clustered horses that had stopped following him. “What’s the hold up?”

  That was when she saw the text from Troy. Before she answered Randy, she was scanning Troy’s message, disbelieving, laughing at first—then looking up at Aunt April. And by Aunt April’s expression, she could tell she’d read the message from Troy as well. They both looked at each other with trembling features poised between worry and laughter, neither of them knowing what their response would be. But Becca was crying. They looked at her, sister Tabby leaning over to rub a consoling hand on her friend. Seeing this young girl hunched over and crying into a hand sunk home the message from her brother. But . . . it couldn’t be true, could it?

  April mouthed: “Biting?” her brow scrunched so tight her aunt had furrows over the bridge of her nose. Then Randy was at her side, and she told him, “Oh, my niece’s friend got some bad news from home, I think.”

  Randy looked troubled, but before he could ask a follow-up, Aunt April was saying, “Did you . . . is it possible . . .” Chickening out from bringing up a query on whether it was feasible the island might have a virus going around making people want to bite each other. How maybe whatever it was here was also happening on the mainland because Becca’s mom sounded like she got attacked and had told her daughter what might be her final words: I love you. April sighed heavily then. “Look, Randy, I think . . . Becca’s upset, none of our phones are working—how about yours? . . .”

  “Didn’t bring it,” he said.

  Aunt April nodded. “Okay. I think we should go back. I think it’s time . . . I know it’s time we headed back.”

  Randy nodded, looking to Nessa then regarding Becca who still quietly cried, Tabby leaning way over now with arms hooked around her friend, threatening to pull them both off their horses with their sagging weight. “We’re at the halfway point now, on a loop, might as well keep on keeping on, but we can pick up the pace if you’re up to it.”

  Aunt April looked her way for guidance, biting on her lower lip.

  She shrugged.

  7

  Christian

  Further horror faced him when he rose.

  At his feet, the man who had yesterday been Steve the masseuse—who probably had a girlfriend, or a boyfriend, plans for the fall, shows on his Netflix watch list he couldn’t wait to get to, bills and books, emails from his mother—was officially and totally dead. Motionless, soundless; still as a dead man should be, a crooked jag of glass inserted into his head through his eye socket winking off sunlight that streamed from the lounge window.

  But behind Christian, feasted yet not sated, the elderly woman from the storage room parted the curtain, leaving a bloody handprint on its white fabric. Milky eyes instantly on Christian, she growled and stepped toward him, curtain clinging to a shoulder then dragging off to flutter behind her as she made her way toward him.

  The struggle with the masseuse had exhausted him, but he wasn’t drained. Not yet. The masseuse, only recently deceased, still retained some of the vigor of the young fit man he once was, but were the old woman as healthy and able as she had been last week before she died, Christian would still have nothing to fear—and he was pumped now, riled and angry.

  She stumbled past the counter, bumbling toward him, the curtain tenting out behind her now as her former husband’s hands reached out. She was an old woman in her late seventies who frankly when she was alive looked like she might be a bit sour, and she was no match for him, and he scowled, focused on her bloody face, picturing her as he’d seen her last when she and her hubby had mauled that pretty young girl, took her life and ate her insides … then he was shuffling toward her, cocking his hand back, forming it into a ball so iron he heard his own knuckles crack.

  No hands up to protect herself, she walked right into it. His fist slammed the corner of her mouth and the soft flesh of her face flapped with the impact. Her head snapped back and she stumbled on her heels, arms flying up, the bloo
d from her meal splashing into the air and over Christian’s hand. She collapsed into her husband, and together they twisted in the curtain, falling together, the spring-loaded bar that held it up jumping out of the archway and whomping onto their heads as they toppled to the floor in a tangle of arms and blood-stained fabric.

  An inexplicable sob wracked from him, thinking of the innocent girl they’d murdered, thinking of his own young daughters somewhere on this island alone and scared and vulnerable, the likelihood of more creatures like these an almost certainty.

  He turned, sprinted, heading for the exit—at the last moment instead darting to the right and running down the hall and into the room where he’d waited for his massage. He clambered over the upended massage table pushed away by the masseuse who he’d left pinned underneath it. Door closed behind him, massage table shoved against the door again, he made his way to the chair where he’d left his own clothes in preparation for his spa treatment.

  Wallet and phone had been tucked under his shirt folded and laid over his pants, and he whisked them aside, grabbing his phone and falling to his knees. Brought to life, he read on its screen a text sent from Troy.

  Troy: People gone crazy in town—virus—do not come to town, watch out, don’t let anyone get close to you THEY BITE go straight back to hotel every body meet there stay safe I love you

  His heart sunk. Proof that this was indeed rampant and not isolated to the spa. His poor Troy facing what he’d faced meant the chances were high that Amanda and the girls would as well.

  “Fuck,” he sighed, tears spilling from his eyes, sniffing them away and wiping at his cheeks with the back of his bloody wrist. He texted now:

  Christian: love you all I’m fine trouble at hotel but it’s all right now. I’ll go to the room and text if okay there Amanda please call text

  He sent it away, dashed his thumb to bring up his wife’s number and dialed, phone thrust to his ear. No signal. Checked his phone’s screen, saw that the text went unsent.

  “Shit, shit, shit,” he hissed and jumped up, getting his feet through his underwear, then his pants. Checked the phone again, saw no change. Socks and shoes were on before the scratching and bumping came to the door—the old woman and the man finding their way out of the curtain and working their way down the hall, probably following his trail of blood. The massage table had been wedged up against the door and while it was heavy, he could see a gap of light. The door opening from their thudding.

  Shirt pulled on, he paused watching the door, mind working a thousand miles an hour. No hesitation now, he turned and put both hands on the push cart that held the masseuse’s lotions and oils. He wheeled it toward the wall of glass that looked out toward the lake, heaving it hard at the last moment, letting it clang against the window. It banged loudly, a crack whipped through it curving like a question mark. He pulled the cart away and did it again, this time taking the heavy cart and whirling it around like he was giving out airplane rides. This time the cart made breech, whacking out an oblong sheaf of glass that fell on to the walkway a few feet below along with the push cart.

  Behind him, the door gave way further, the heavy massage table scraping the floor, the gap in the door widening enough he saw the faces of the two elderly zombies—pale eyes and bloody cheeks, mouths working open and closed hungrily, and trying to tumble through to get him.

  With the chair, he knocked away a human-sized space for himself to pass, tossing the chair out ahead of him to clatter across the path and into the grass. The old woman spilled through the gap and collapsed on the massage table, her husband falling on top of her.

  Christian was already out the window, ducking and avoiding the sharp broken edges of his passage, jumping to the path and sprinting now to the hotel room, fucking praying everyone was already there ahead of him, safe and sound.

  8

  Troy

  Just great. Seemed like the phone lines were still down, and they could probably expect them to be down for a while. Maybe even forever. Brit had tried her phone for him. Same thing. No texts going through and she wasn’t able to make a call.

  Now he was standing in the kitchen at the side door that led out to the detached garage, one hand held on the lever, thumb ready to depress the button. He scanned left and right, making sure there was no one out there.

  Brit’s neighborhood was still way too quiet. Given all they’d seen coming down the big hill from the town, he would’ve expected the whole island to have erupted in mayhem by now. Expected to see people running and screaming, expected to see hordes of zombies on parade, lurching up and down the streets. But how fast would an infection really take over the whole island? Maybe they’d seen the worst of it because they were in town where the biggest congregation of people were. What if this was something that they could all get control over? It would just be a matter of getting enough good people together who could exterminate the undead. If you could nip it in the bud, maybe it wouldn’t be too late before the island was overwhelmed. It was a hopeful thought, but he knew there was a contrary: one bite became two, and two became four, four became eight, eight became sixteen and then by sundown tonight this island could be crawling with—what . . .?—maybe 15,000 zombies. 20,000 zombies? 50,000—what was the summer population here?

  “Okay, I’m going to go,” he said.

  Brit stood at the sink behind him, filling up plastic containers with screw-top lids from the kitchen tap. She said, “We have firewood stacked on the far side of the garage. You can go around the back and then it’s between the fence and the garage. You’ll see the axe there. It should be sitting right on top of the woodpile.”

  “I’m just going to be one minute,” he said, looking back at her. She was trying to keep herself busy, preparing some essentials they’d need if they all gathered in a vehicle and had to travel. Did they really need to pack water? Maybe her dad did, but how far were they really going to go? It wasn’t that big an island. Water still ran from the tap, and how long would they be in the vehicle? It was just going to be a quick drive to the resort—then where? . . . Down to the port? Hotwire a boat? . . .

  Just the same, he let her get herself prepared. He wasn’t convinced that she’d decided they would bring her father, so anything that looked like forward momentum from her was a gift. If the island was overrun, she couldn’t stay here. He’d have to bring her and her father with their family. And as he watched her, this pretty girl he only just met yesterday, he felt a certain fondness—beyond the duty he felt since their attachment in the Rebel’s bathroom, there was something else there. But he’d have to watch that. It was the kind of thing that would slow them down. The kind of thing that was making him want to ask her right now Where’s your mother? What’s your sisters’ names? Where would we find them?

  All those things put more minutes between the time he could get out of here and get to his own family. They were the ones that mattered the most. So he pushed all that away, and said, “Hey, Brit . . .?” When she looked up he said, “Come close this door behind me. Watch for me, don’t lock it, I’m going to be back in just one minute, okay?”

  She nodded, set her bottle down, screwed the lid on it. “Okay,” she said, her gaze coming up to meet his now, showing him her resolve.

  “One minute,” he repeated, and without waiting for her, thumbing the door open and shoving it with his shoulder, dashing down two concrete steps while it closed softly on hydraulic springs behind him.

  Brit’s garage was maybe twelve feet by twenty, behind the house, a single door in the side facing him, and he imagined the garage bay would open onto an alley that ran behind the property. White clapboard like the home, black shingled roof with rain gutters, and on the left a six-foot high fence that separated Brit’s property from the neighbor, their neighbor’s cedar hedge jutting above the fence line.

  The whole backyard was fenced in, and it seemed pretty secure to him, but it didn’t stop him from glancing over both shoulders as he made his way to the back of the garage. The
yard was also unkempt back here, the lawn not being mowed. But it seemed in a bit of perspective now, knowing her family situation. Her father laid up in bed, terminal, just her and her sister, maybe another one looking after him. It would be a time filled with grief and yet enormous responsibility.

  As he rounded the corner moving in the narrow four-foot wide space between the garage and the fence, he heard beyond the garage in the laneway out back the sound of sneaker feet running. Given the speed and liveliness it wouldn’t be an undead, but the fear was it was someone running from the undead. If they were running, that meant the undead were nearby.

  He made his way midway down the garage, running his hand over the long lengths of stacked firewood and saw ahead the wooden curved handle of an ax. He grabbed it, pulled it down and hefted it. It was good and sturdy, a nice heavy weight to it, but the blade seemed dull, the cheeks stained and pitted with rust. However, he was twenty-one, six-four and almost two-hundred pounds and intent on saving his family—the blade wasn’t so dull it wouldn’t split someone’s head in two if they tried to stop him . . .

  9

  Hunt

  All five boys watched from the shady spot at the mouth of the cave as the two redcoat soldiers stumbled and lurched across the grass toward them, Hunt still holding his phone, wondering his brother’s meaning and how he would broach the subject with these kids he barely knew. Craig, Steve, and JoJo watched with smirks, Craig with his arms folded. The drunk men (if they were indeed drunk, and not dead as Troy’s text had suggested), listed as they made their approach, definitely seeming like they’d been up all night knocking them back.

  JoJo said to Craig: “What do you want to do?”

  Craig watched the redcoats a moment longer, said, “I don’t know yet. See what this asshole is up to.”