by A. Rosaria
“Hey, fucker, I‘m gonna get you like I got this bitch, you hear me,” the attacker yelled while spraying yet another haze of bullets.
Ralph searched Frank‘s body and found a small revolver strapped to his ankle. Pulling it out, Ralph checked the chamber. It was a fully loaded snub 32. special. Heavy footfalls came their way. The small revolver improved his chances a little, but his only hope was catching the bandit by surprise again. Ralph edged closer to the hood of the car. He could aim over it, but his assaulter expected that. Instead, he rolled to the side, out in the open. The man was slow to react, having his initial aim much higher above the spot Ralph had been before. Ralph aimed and shot twice, hitting the man in the belly and shoulder, dropping him to his knees when he doubled over. The man cried out in pain and screamed obscenities while trying to get up. Ralph walked up to him and put the snub barrel against the man‘s temple and pulled the trigger. The bullet edged the skull, sheared the skin open around it, and peeled the left ear, leaving it hanging by the skin.
The man swung his arms, smashing the MP5 in Ralph‘s face, knocking him back. Wobbling on his legs, the man aimed unsteadily. The shots went wide over Ralph‘s head. Ralph knelt down and shot the remaining bullets. Two lodged in the chest, another hit the man‘s throat, dropping him. Amazingly, the man still tried to breathe, choking on his own blood.
Ralph grabbed the pistol the man had dropped next to the body of the dead woman. It was a 45. cal, enough punch to crack a skull open. This time the bullet would go through; it had to. He kicked the man, sending him rolling on his back. Through his bloody mouth, he uttered a last curse and Ralph shot the top of his head off, painting the road with blood, bone, and brains.
Ralph scanned the surrounding area for anyone else that might be there. Satisfied that they were finally alone, he scooped up the SMG and slung it on his back. He rounded the car back to Skip. The man had finally shut up and was silently crying, holding Frank. Red eyed, he looked up at Ralph.
“Frank is dead. My friend is dead. Please help me, help me get him back, get him back good, not bad like the others.”
Ralph knew what he meant, an impossibility. There was no way to know if he would turn or not, and everyone who had turned so far turned out a flesh-eating monster. This was not a chance he was willing to take. It would hurt Skip, realizing this, but it would hurt much more if Frank woke up and started chewing on him.
“Move away from him,” Ralph said as gently as he could. Skip covered Frank with his body, preventing Ralph from taking a clear shot to the head. The man might have the mind of a child, but not the body of one. There was no way Ralph would be able to forcefully remove him from Frank.
“Skip, you know how this will turn out.”
Vehemently, Skip shook his head as if the fiercer he shook it the more he could deny the reality of things. The look in Skip‘s eyes told Ralph he knew, he knew what would happen, and knew it had to happen. As time passed, he shook his head less and less and finally dropped his chin to his chest.
“Let me take care of him before it happens to him,” Ralph said.
“It‘s not fair. I hate this world.” With one last sob, he let go of Frank.
Ralph laid Frank on his back.
“Cover your eyes,” he said to Skip before shooting Frank in the head.
Skip shut his eyes. As the shot rang, Skip jumped a little. Ralph dropped down, sitting next to Skip. He had no words of comfort for the man, who was crying again. The adrenaline had left Ralph‘s body, and sitting here in near peace, with no one else around besides Skip, it finally sank in what had happened. He had seen a woman get murdered, almost got killed himself, and he had killed a man again. A living man.
He looked up at the sky with not one single cloud and the sun shining brightly. That such nonsense could happen under such a sky. What was the point of killing each other when, around the world, the dead were already quite busy doing that? Shouldn‘t they all cling to life? All life and not just their own? He wished he could have saved the woman. Maybe if he had waited, he might have, but he hadn‘t and things had turned out for the worst again. What disturbed him the most was himself. He didn‘t feel remorse for killing the guy.
The first time he shot someone, he had to do so to save Lilly. The girl was already as good as dead, blood spurting out her neck where she had been bitten. She would have died within minutes, but at that time, they didn‘t have minutes. Seconds before the zombies had swamped over them, he had pulled the trigger. Only with the girl gone would Lilly let go of her, else she would have kept trying to get her free. It made him feel sad he had to do it, and bad for doing it, although he had saved the girl any further suffering and saved Lilly‘s life—however short that was. That whole incident had affected him, but not like killing the two robbers. Those people were alive, not mortally wounded, and there would have been no need to kill them if they had just left him alone as he had begged them to. He had broken down and almost died for it. However, killing this one man, who so carelessly shot a woman in the back of the head, made him feel nothing when he pulled the trigger and ended his miserable life. The man had killed Frank and the woman, and would have killed Skip. He expected to feel something after killing him. He had not expected this emptiness, this numb feeling. And since when had it become so easy to shoot someone and see their head cave in as the bullet entered and exploded when it exited? He no longer had a second thought about it, as if they were never humans.
He had a whole other life pictured for himself. He wished he could go back to school, even if he hated it. He wished he had met a girl like Lauryn sooner, had her as a girlfriend. He wished he had endured the last six months of school together with her. Maybe start a normal life. Instead, he got this dying world, ruled by the dead and the living turning mad. Instead, he met Lauryn on the day the world went to shit, and the little thing they had lasted for only a bus ride. She probably was dead now, after he left her alone to die, and everyday he remembered that fact and felt awful about it.
Deep in thought, he didn‘t notice Skip had stopped crying and was looking ahead with his mouth open, frozen in place. It was when he heard a moan that he looked up. His muscles tensed. They had managed to get up the stairs and out the hospital. The zombies—tens of them in their uniforms, the same ones that tried to get him in the shelter—were now gunning for him again, drawn in by the gunshots. Who knew how many more were closing in on their location. These ones couldn‘t be the only ones. It was dumb really, staying this long in the same spot; he should have known that they would have attracted unwanted attention. God, he should have left when he had a chance. Now they had to flee and might not have a chance to do so without getting hurt.
Ralph scrambled up and he tried to get Skip to stand, but the man didn‘t budge. Having no time for this childlike behavior, Ralph slapped him hard on the cheek, hoping to break him out of his paralysis. It helped. Skip looked up, hurt, his lips quivering.
“We don‘t have time for this. We need to move.”
“Frank never hit me,” Skip bawled.
“Frank is dead and if we stay here any longer so will we.”
It got him moving, though the look of disappointment on Skip face threw him back a little.
“You‘re not a nice man. You‘re not nice at all.”
Skip might be right, but the time for niceties went out the moment the zombies appeared. Survival came first. Still, he liked to think of himself as a nice person, and Skip‘s words stung.
He pushed the gun into Skip‘s hands. “Hold this for me.”
Ralph scowled at Skip when he tried to reject the gun. Begrudgingly and awkwardly, the big man finally took it. It would be useless in his hands, but at least Ralph had one thing less to carry. The zombies were steadily closing the distance between them. Their goings were slow, giving him some time to get away. He saw Frank‘s rifle and two backpacks on the ground near to what used to be a van, about ten feet from him. He ran for it; Skip followed closely.
He slung on
e bag over his shoulder and gave the other one to Skip. He grabbed the rifle. He had the SMG, but you couldn‘t really use it as a club like you could with the rifle, and right now he would rather bash a zombie‘s head in than make a lot of sound by spraying bullets at them. Never having fired an SMG before, he wasn‘t sure he could handle it and didn‘t want to take a chance with it while being chased.
“We need to go.”
Ralph ran up the street, glad to put some distance between him and the walkers.
“Stop,” Skip howled.
Skip was still standing near the car with his backpack in one hand and the gun in his other. “We can‘t leave them here; they will eat them.”
Ralph ran back, grabbed him by his arm, and dragged him away. Skip struggled against him, slowing them down. This guy was going to get him killed. There was no way they could get the bodies safe and away from the incoming mob of dead people.
“Skip, really, we don‘t have time for this. We need to go, now! They only eat the living.”
Skip shoved him against a car, bruising his ribs. Ralph cried out and cursed. The large man stood in front of him, nose flared up, frowning angry. “They eat everyone who does not turn.”
Skip grabbed for Ralph‘s backpack. He was too surprised by the sudden ferocity of the simpleton that he stood stunned, allowing Skip to grab it from him. Skip rummaged through the bag and fished out a plastic bottle of gasoline. He poured its contents over Frank, and then calmly walked to the woman and emptied the bottle over her. He skipped the attackers. The zombies were close now, real close. It didn‘t feel right to Ralph that they were risking their lives for this. After what had just happened, no one would blame him if he just left Skip behind. Though, something deep within him—maybe it was him still caring—stopped him from abandoning the man. He watched as Skip calmly moved around as if he were leisurely strolling through a park and not a city with a score of dead people shuffling closer with every tick of the minute hand.
Ralph aimed his rifle at the closest one. Be damned if he made a sound now, they were already upon them. The zombies, their moans and growls, grew more frantic. He could feel their hunger. It sent shivers down Ralph‘s back, knowing he was their food. Skip, with a matchbox in one hand and a match in the other, stood over the woman‘s corpse. He struck a match and threw it on her. She immediately caught fire. He stared at it, mumbling something.
“Skip, hurry the fuck up!”
Skip turned to look at him and back at the multitude of dead walking toward them. He strolled over to Frank, stood still for a second, touched his forehead, chest, left shoulder, right shoulder, and finally held his hand to his heart. The zombies, seeing his big back, started shuffling faster, their arms stretched, ten to fifteen feet away. Skip was cutting it close.
“Hurry up!”
Skip struck a match. It went out and so did the next one. The closest zombie—a nurse, once a pretty blond girl—was a foot away from grabbing Skip and behind her followed the rest. Skip struck his last match, and it caught fire. He dropped it on Frank, sending his body into flames at the same time the nurse grabbed Skip‘s shoulders. Ralph rushed forward, raising his rifle to shoot. Skip swung his body wildly, flailing his arms. The movement threw the zombie back against those following it, sending them all to the ground.
Relieved, Ralph backed down. Skip turned to follow but stopped in his tracks, raising an arm, a finger pointing somewhere behind Ralph. Another mob of zombies just turned the corner into the street, blocking their way out. Ralph ran around the car to the other side of the street, with Skip close behind, and ran up the other end of the street. Zombies exited from the alleyways. The town hadn‘t been totally empty after all. Luckily, there weren‘t many zombies shuffling out of the alleys. They came in twos or threes. Not enough to cut them off completely.
Ralph gestured for Skip to join him in the middle of the street. They now had a large group behind them, and to the side, zombies kept coming from the side streets, converging behind them, making the group following them larger. Ahead, at a crossing, came more zombies. Skip lagged behind. Being heavy set made him slower than Ralph. At this speed, they would be blocked off by the zombies ahead. It was a good thing there were fewer in front of them than behind, so that even if they blocked them, it was still possible to break through. However, with zombies coming from the sides, he couldn‘t stop and take aim with the rifle and take out those in front. He had to get up close and risk being taken down.
“Hand me the gun.” Ralph stretched his hand out.
“I‘m sorry—” A puff of breath. “—so sorry—.” A long wheeze. “—.I dropped it.”
Ralph could hit himself for giving it to him. Now he had no other choice than to use the rifle for close range or risk using the SMG. The zombies were keeping a steady pace, relentlessly walking, never tiring, while they themselves were slowing down. Skip breathed laboriously, wheezing like an old man. Fifty feet to the edge of town. Only two zombies were in their way. Two men. Their necks were torn and the one to the right was also missing a left arm. Ralph veered to the right, at least that one couldn‘t immediately grab him. Three feet away, Ralph stopped, aimed, and took a shot, blowing the zombies jaw off. Its tongue lulled out, swinging aimlessly. It didn‘t go down. Skip kept running, bashed the one-armed and now jawless zombie, and kept running, not stopping to look back. The other one jumped over its fallen comrade. It startled Ralph, making him fumble with his rifle. He raised it a second too late. The zombie swiped the rifle aside and bore down on him, teeth snapping together, trying to find any body part exposed.
Ralph grabbed the zombie‘s arm, pulling it over his shoulder, and bent forward, attempting to throw the zombie over his shoulder. The zombie was too heavy for him, and Ralph had to let go. He threw himself on the ground, avoiding being grabbed. He looked up. The zombies following him were close. He looked for Skip, but he had vanished. He couldn‘t really blame the guy—survival above everything. Had Skip run like that before instead of insisting on burning the bodies, this wouldn‘t be happening.
Ralph crawled away, putting some space between him and the zombies. He still might get away. The jumping zombie trotted after him at a speed Ralph had not seen any go before. Ralph scrambled up. He needed to run to get away. He felt a weight press him down. He managed to turn on his back. The zombie was on him. It had jumped again. Ralph held the zombie off, keeping it away from his neck. He was done for. With this many zombies around, even if he managed to struggle free, it would take too much time. He would be surrounded and they would have their feast.
The jumping zombie was violently pulled off him. In its place, Skip grabbed Ralph and helped him up.
“Sorry, I‘m so sorry. I lost you, so sorry.”
Whatever Skip had done, right now Ralph forgave him all his sins and future sins. It didn‘t matter that they were in this bind because of him; Skip was a good guy. He had returned for him, and that told him all he needed to know about the man. Skip knocked down another zombie, an elderly lady who could have been anyone‘s sweet grandma, but was now a decaying corpse.
“I‘m sorry,” Skip said as he ran over the zombie, dragging Ralph with him.
Ralph pried himself free from the iron grip Skip held his wrist in. Together they exited the town, running on the road up a hill. They stopped on top. Skip dropped down, sitting, panting heavily, and wheezing every second breath. Ralph stood, bent over, with his hands on his knees, breathing heavily. They barely made it out. He had lost the rifle in the struggle, but luckily he still had the SMG slung on his back. He had only one clip, though, and who knew how many bullets were left in it.
“We need to move.”
He had no idea where they would go; he just knew they couldn‘t stay here. They hurried down the road, hoping the zombies would not catch up. Now that he knew some were faster, he knew that simply walking wouldn‘t be enough to stay safe. Eventually, they needed to find a faster way to travel, and a safer way. They couldn‘t stay this exposed and hope for t
he best. However, this was a problem for later. He still had to find the medicine for Sarah, but for now he had to keep walking until they lost them. This was his life now, forever escaping death that would one day come. He would cry if he could.
CHAPTER SIX
Sarah turned from one side to the other on the mattress. A jolt of pain shot up her arm on her last wild turn when she ripped out the needle connecting her to the IV. She woke up for a second and the next she slipped back into a state on the edge of sleep and awake. Fixed in a fake reality, she saw herself in her room, cuddled in her bed, safe in her home. Billy, her baby brother, slept in the room next to hers. Safe and alive. A peace fell over her. Then slowly her room changed from the clean, nice room, with her white desk and bed, into a spartan, cramped bedroom, which turned out to be just a bed. Not her nice warm bed with clean linens, but a mattress with a plain sheet that didn‘t provide any warmth. Her clean white ceiling turned into a cigarette stained one.
The feeling of safety and peace was replaced with that of apprehension and danger. This wasn‘t her bedroom; this was the RV. The one she and Ralph had found on the interstate. Ralph? That should be Jake, not Ralph. Jake was her boyfriend. Why would she go anywhere with Ralph? Sure he wasn‘t that bad looking, some days even cute, but no way. Jake was dead; she knew that. Ralph was her friend now, not boyfriend. Her thoughts, she couldn‘t keep them straight. What had they done to her?
She turned again, knocking the IV pole over. The IV bag dislodged and fell on her. The cold wetness on her belly made her jolt upright. Still drowsy, not really awake, she rubbed her eyes and looked around. She had an imminent feeling something was about to happen. Someone would come knocking. She saw the IV pole and the bag on her lap. It slowly came back to her what it was. No, not Ralph, someone else was coming. They wanted to take her away. That creepy guy and his short friend.