“You’re going to kill me!” she yelled, her back facing me, so I couldn't see her face.
She pounded on the door again, and this time the door swung open, causing her to stumble forward. She fell to her hands and knees in the doorway of the house and I ran to help her. I didn’t know what the hell was wrong with her, or why she was reacting like this, but I couldn’t just let her run away. I would drag her back to the SUV if I had to knock her out and throw her over my shoulder. I was tired of her acting like this. The petulant teen routine was getting really old. It was going to get us killed.
She screamed again, like a frightened child, when I reached for her to pull her to her feet.
“What is wrong with you, Alicia?" I asked again, not really expecting an answer but trying to get her to talk to me. "I left Hank and Barbara by themselves with more of those infected. God knows what is happening to them. Come back with me now and stop this bullshit.” I tried not to be so harsh, but it came out in a bark.
“You’ll kill me, I know you will,” she sobbed. And that’s when I saw it, the angry red wound on her shoulder. She had covered it up with her shirt, which was now drenched in blood as the wound leaked onto the black material. It was a bite, the woman at Costco hadn’t just scratched her, she had bitten her.
“I’m not going to kill you, Leesh,” I said, my voice catching when I realized the implication of that bite. If it was transmitted by bite, Alicia was as good as dead. She was going to become one of those things, with nothing behind her eyes, only one thing on her mind…to bite and infect others.
“You killed them, you just shot them, you didn’t even try to help them,” she sobbed.
"I’m not going to do that to you, Alicia, just come back with me. We’ll get in the SUV and we’ll get you to the hospital. We don’t have to go to the compound. We’ll go to the hospital. We’ll just keep on driving to Slidell. Those other people are dead, that's why they are the way they are. We don't know what happens when you just get a bite, they'll just give you some medicine and you'll get better.” I don't know who I was lying to, myself or her.
Three staccato gunshots ripped through the air and Alicia screamed again, falling back against the wall of the house. The shots came from the direction of the SUV, it had to be Hank. Our father had taken us hunting when we were kids and while Hank had never taken to the sport, he was always a good shot. Not as good as me, but still good. I prayed that his skill still held.
Something clattered from inside the house.
“Come on, let’s go back to the SUV.” More sounds came from inside the house and Alicia scrambled to her feet. I needed to get Alicia settled down. There was danger around every corner in this godforsaken neighborhood. We needed to move and I would deal with her bite later. I felt the sick pang of worry take root in my gut, but again, move first, deal with emotional shit later. I had always been able to compartmentalize. It kept me sane during the war and it would keep me sane now.
She let me lead her away and we had made it halfway down the front walk when a low whine stopped us in our tracks. We both turned around slowly. A small figure emerged from the dark house, shuffling out of the foyer and onto the front stoop. It was a child. It was an infected child.
Something, or really someone, had bit it on the neck and its wound had bled all down the pretty pink dress she wore. It was the only obvious sign of attack. Just one bite. She was barefoot and shuffled forward on tiny feet. A little Vietnamese doll, with big vacant eyes and tiny baby teeth, red with blood. She had bitten someone else.
“She’s a baby,” Alicia moaned and pressed back against me. I looked down, distracted by her wound and the smell of infection that wafted off of it. It had only been an hour and already Alicia smelled wrong and putrid. Soon she would be like this little child, vacant eyes and bloody teeth, just from one bite.
“Just turn around and run, run with me, Leesh.” I pulled her back and we turned and ran. The tiny feet of the child couldn’t keep up with our long-legged strides. But as we rushed through the neighborhood, intent on getting back to the SUV, I knew our time had run out. I saw them, a group of ten, all infected. It was a damn pack of the fuckers. They were adults and much faster than the child. They came at us from the right and I didn’t notice them until it was too late. They were only a few yards from us when they stumbled out from a fence that gaped open. They wore bathing suits, the women in tiny bikinis that had shifted from the violence, revealing their bloody breasts and other parts. The men wore board shorts and one even was sporting a speedo. All of them looked to be in their late teens and early twenties, all beautiful and tanned skin turned gray. A pool party gone horrific.
They ran at us on feet covered in flip-flops and wedge sandals and it gave me hope that we could still make it. One tripped and took a few down with it. If we could run fast enough, outpace their stumbling gait, we would make it through this. They weren’t at the peak of health, most were battered, injured and their gait reflected their injuries. They ran, but it was a hectic, almost violent romp. They stumbled easily, they fell into each other, driven mad by our proximity.
I yanked Alicia along with me. We would make it to the SUV. We had to make it. I didn’t want to stop and fight them because there were too many and if I used my gun, the sound would only draw more.
Alicia’s foot caught on the broken sidewalk and she went down. She pulled me with her, our legs tangled together like puppets. I managed to regain my footing without going all the way down and I pulled her up with me to keep our grueling pace, but she screamed in protest. She had skinned both knees and it caused her to limp. Now she was unsteady on her feet. Had her skin been that gray earlier?
“Come on, Alicia, we have to move, we only have a little more to go,” I urged her. We were too slow. The infected had caught up to us and when she tripped again, she fell away from me and rolled in the grass. The infected surrounded us, some breaking off and going after her, the rest coming for me.
“Alicia!” I screamed trying to go for her, but there were too many. I would have to go through them to get to her.
I drew a knife that I had sheathed at my belt and as they came for me, I slashed. I kicked at them, fought them. I pushed their heads away from me as they tried to bite. Alicia’s screams began and I felt the tears stream down my face. I knew there was no hope for her against this mob of infected. They were determined to spread their infection. They were determined to eat us alive.
As her screams intensified, I slashed and slashed. Every time I sunk my blade into their flesh there was no reaction. They didn’t cry out, they didn’t stagger back. Nothing. Not until I completely incapacitated them did they let up. Finally I brained one, knife deep in the skull, right through the eye…pushed in with a scream of frustration and terror…only then did it finally fall at my feet. Dead. Forever dead. I had to take out the brain. Zombie 101. I should have known that. I had never been the sharpest tool in the shed.
I was never one for horror movies or books, but I didn’t live under a rock. These infected people, these things that got up after they were dead and tried to eat my flesh, needed a head shot to go down. Just like a horror movie. This whole situation was something out of a horror movie. This wasn’t a virus. This wasn’t an infection. This was the dead, the reanimated dead. My little sister was being torn apart by zombies.
They fell quickly after that. I knew how to take them down. My vision went red and I focused on my enemy. These were monsters, plain and simple. Alicia’s screams had stopped and I did not want to pause and think about what that meant. The dead still pushed at me, grabbed for me as I kicked and punched and stabbed.
When the last one fell at my feet I walked over to the three remaining zombies. They were bent over my sister. They were eating my little sister. They had ripped her apart. Her stomach and intestines were a red mess across her body and those things were busy pulling her flesh into their mouths, their gnashing teeth making weird squishing noises as they swallowed her flesh.
&n
bsp; She was dead.
Her skin a deathly gray.
They had killed her. They were eating her.
I had sworn I would protect her. She was my baby sister. And I had failed.
I grabbed the first one by its hair. It had the long, thick, black hair of a person of Asian descent. It was still shiny with life, but now it was matted and soaked with viscera and blood. I yanked her head back and slammed my knife into her eye. It went in easy. It slid through the soft tissue and lodged in her brain.
I yanked the knife out and she fell across the others. They had stopped feeding and were pushing up to get to me. The closest one, a teen boy, stood and stumbled forward. I slammed my blade hard into his skull. It took a great effort of will, but it broke through the bone and dropped him.
The next one was the child. She had caught up to us. Her little pink dress was now completely covered in the bright red color of fresh blood. She moaned, her little teeth snapped at me as she reached tiny hands in my direction. I let her come to me, and I fell to my knees in front of her.
A part of me wanted to just let her come, just let her bury that little body in my arms and sink her teeth into my skin. How could a person survive this? How could I possibly function from this point on?
Was this our world? Was this going to be how things were? Because if the dead were coming back to life and eating us there was no going back, there was no triumphant return from a fucking zombie apocalypse. It was just run, fight and survive if you could. Then finally one day you would die, most likely in a bloody, nasty way. There was only death ahead of me, why not just face it head on?
As she came closer I opened my arms, but only to reach for her. I pulled her to me by her dress and grabbed her by the hair. I pushed her head down, her teeth away from any of my exposed flesh, and I sank the knife into her skull. It sank much easier in her little skull than the adults. Her head was not as thick as that of her grown zombie buddies. She fell in front of me and I pushed her back and away from me. Her sightless eyes stared up at the sky, her face now peaceful in real death. She was so little and now she was so broken.
I forced myself to get to my feet. I forced myself to walk over to the bloody mess that was Alicia. She moved.
She wasn't Alicia anymore.
Her eyes were white and glazed over, but she still knew I was there. She was dead, but she still moved with fake life. She still hungered. She reached for me. Her lips gaped open and her teeth clicked.
“Alicia.” Her name came out more like a sob than a word. I stared down at her body. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to run, I wanted to leave her here, but I also didn’t want to go anywhere. I wanted to gather her up and bring her to the nearest hospital. I had to do something. But there was nothing I could do.
I knew she was dead.
I had failed my little sister and she had paid the ultimate price.
I couldn’t leave her like this. Her reanimated flesh now tried to push itself up from the ground to get to me. I reached forward and pressed the blade to her face.
I couldn’t do it.
I pushed it in and the blade sunk into her flesh with little resistance. She fell back against the grass.
She was dead.
I yanked the blade out of her face and stood. I wiped the blade on my pants. Should I grab her? Should we bring her somewhere and bury her?
I looked around at my surroundings. I barely saw the light of day, the bright blue sky, the hot summer day that seemed so out of place in this bleak end of the world scenario. I walked up the path of the closest house. The door hung open. This must be where some of the zombies came from. A house of horrors. Blood splattered the walls and a dead body lay strewn on the floor, too mutilated to move and attack. The twitch of the finger clued me in that even this state of being was still "alive".
I grabbed a blanket that was strewn haphazardly on the sofa. I walked with a purpose out of the house. I glanced around me just in case there were more of the dead about to strike.
I walked up to Alicia’s body and covered her with the blanket. I rolled her onto the thick material. I tucked it around her and lifted her onto my shoulder. I couldn’t leave her.
Eighteen
No Choice Kind of World
HANK and Barbara turned as one as they heard the clomp of my feet up the path. Barbara was always smarter than Hank. She figured out what was going on first and I saw the realization wash over her face. She ran to me, her hands fluttered over the body that I had draped over my shoulder. The body of our little sister.
“She was bit, in Costco. The woman bit her,” I whispered. I pushed away from their hands, their faces gaped at me. They looked like fish yanked out of the water, their mouths wide in shock. I opened the door of the SUV with one hand, noting that the tire was changed and we were ready to go. That was something. I placed Alicia gingerly in the backseat. She was tiny, so she fit easily, but it was awkward getting her to prop up against the door so she wouldn't fall over. I pulled a box from the back to hold up against her so she wouldn’t do a face plant onto whoever was going to sit back there. I was driving, so Barbara or Hank would have to sit next to Alicia’s dead body. I didn’t want to think about that.
“Let’s go.” I held my hands out for the keys and Hank, his face drained of color, placed them in my hands.
“I wasn’t going to leave her back there,” I said, justifying my actions. I got behind the wheel and I didn't care at this point about their reactions. I just wanted to go. I wanted to put this horror show behind me. Even though I knew it would never be over. The freak show was only just beginning. The death of my sister was a testament to the horror of this new world. Barbara slipped into the passenger seat next to me. Hank, the puller of the short straw, had to ride in the seat next to Alicia’s body. His acceptance of his position allowed his wife a little respite, but from the look of pain on her face she was aware of what was right behind her.
Barbara and Alicia had never gotten along well. They did before my parents died, but the moment Barbara stepped up and tried to act like a mother, Alicia did her very best to put her in her place. Barbara, to her credit, had always been there for Alicia, had always struggled to help her, even when the girl tried her very best to sabotage anything she did.
Barbara had truly cared for my sister. She had been there for her when I couldn't or wouldn't.
Barbara’s sobs began the moment I pulled from the curb. She kept them low, but with once glance I saw the tears trailing down her cheeks and heard the hiccups as she tried to not make a spectacle of herself. My eyes burned and my hands fisted in rage. I couldn't push away the thoughts, the pain of what happened played over and over again. I couldn't stop the replay and the self-doubt, the could haves and the should haves, everything I could have done to prevent this tragedy.
But really, as I analyzed the replays, there was one underlying thought, one big glaring fact. No matter what I could have done, or should have done, it most likely would have ended this way. We had been caught unaware, I hadn’t reacted fast enough. I shouldn’t have allowed us to stop at the store like this. This was not just another hurricane. I wouldn’t make this mistake in the future. There was no more time for crying and acting weak. The goal was to survive and survival would take thinking with my head and not my heart. I needed to protect the people in this car, no matter how much they didn't like my rules.
I glanced in the rearview mirror as I pulled down the street. I saw three bodies in the middle of the road and remembered the gunshots from earlier. Hank had killed three of them, their bodies haphazardly strewn over the concrete. A calm descended over me when I saw those bodies. Hank was on the same page. He knew what was happening with the world. He had killed them. He knew there was no other choice. Just like I had no other choice with Alicia.
Nineteen
The Island
THE road to the compound was a desolate stretch of highway. Once we passed through the last subdivisions of New Orleans East, the road turned to a swampy lan
dscape that pressed in on both sides. Lake Pontchartrain was to our north and Lake Catherine to our south. The strip of land in the middle was prime real estate for fishing camps and seafood processing. It was Southern living at its finest.
We passed camp after camp with no sign of life. Nothing moved, not even a boat on the water. It wasn't until we got to a more heavily populated area that boasted multi-million dollar homes did the activity pick up, but still it was light. There were only a few cars on the road and only a small amount of people wandering around outside of their homes.
I made the turn south on the road that Zach and Blake had to construct themselves. The contractor that they had bought the property from had only done a minimal road from this area, not wanting easy access from the highway and keeping most of the traffic via boat. Zach and Blake had paved what was only a dirt road and expanded the bridge to accommodate larger vehicles. The contractor had brought all of his equipment in from barges, but the owners of MJ Security didn’t want to rely on just water access.
The road led to a modest two-lane causeway that traversed a small inlet of Lake Catherine. At its deepest point on this small section of swampy water, it would barely go over your head, but it was enough to keep out the curious. At the end of the bridge, a metal gate lay across the road, really only a pole to keep out the casual sightseer. I pulled up to the crossing gate and got out, moving it to the side so I could drive the SUV through.
I got back into the vehicle, and pulled through, then I got back out and closed the gate. It wasn’t that secure, anyone could get in, I would have to fix that. This wasn’t just a training facility now. It was going to be our refuge. It had to be safe.
The area of the compound was a five-mile island, right off the small piece of land that connected the two lakes. The land had been a marshy, grassy island, but the initial contractor had big dreams of building another multi-million dollar neighborhood in the area and he had filled in the land, reinforced the shores with retaining walls and installed a bunch of docks everywhere he planned to have a house. Then he had begun to construct cookie-cutter McMansions on the property. The man had been more interested in green energy and off-the-grid living than he could afford, so when he sunk thousands into a wind-turbine and no one had expressed any interest in purchasing his over-priced homes during a depression–he had called it quits and filed bankruptcy. Zach and Blake had scooped up the property for a bargain. Or that was the story. It was the perfect place for training and with the already constructed housing, the two men had set up houses for themselves and the perfect getaway for clients that needed a safe refuge.
SHTF (NOLA Zombie Book 0) Page 9