by A. Rosaria
Ralph grabbed Skip by the shoulder and pulled him back before he could cross the street. A lone zombie, dressed in a tight-fitting business dress with slim horn-rimmed glasses on, shuffled past them, dragging a broken foot and leaving a trail of blood and rasped meat behind where the bone stuck out of her skin and touched the asphalt. Once the distance between them and the zombie was great enough, Ralph sped out of the alley, pulling Skip with him. They took cover behind a car. No zombie saw them, and not wanting to increase the chance it might happen, they dashed from cover to cover before finally crossing the street to the alley leading to the back of the store.
“Stop here, need a breather,” Skip said to Ralph, who turned around with raised eyebrows.
“We are almost there,” Ralph said through clenched teeth.
Something must have gotten into Skip. His eyes skirted to every corner and shadow as if he expected someone or something to jump out and swallow him whole. In the short time he knew the man, he had not seen him like this before. Sure he freaked out when Frank died, he had a reason then, but not now. There was no imminent danger here. When escaping the zombies, he had looked calmer than this. Something spooked him and spooked him bad.
“We can‘t stay here. We need to press on.”
Skip shook his head, not saying anything about why he didn‘t want to move on.
“Okay, okay, stay put and I‘ll go in alone.”
Before Ralph could leave, Skip‘s hand closed around his wrist, gripping him tightly with such force it hurt.
Skip gave him a serious look. “Something doesn‘t feel right. Something bad will happen here. I know this, I know. I warned Frank, but he never listened, and now he is dead. Please, please, listen to me. Don‘t go in. Something is wrong. Bad, bad wrong things will happen if you go inside.”
Skip didn‘t make any sense, blathering about something wrong, something he felt. Ralph had no feelings whatsoever that something was about to happen. The only danger he sensed was from the group of zombies gathered in the middle of the street in front of the store. They shouldn‘t be worried about them. They were out of sight and behind the store. Besides, the whole world was wrong and dangerous.
Ralph yanked his wrist free, pushed Skip away, and moved on before Skip could grab him again. He had to see it through even if it killed him. This time it wasn‘t like the hospital with a ton of zombies waiting for him inside. The whole place should be deserted, at most the owner and an employee would be inside. He could easily deal with a small group of zombies. He had been doing that the whole day, a few more wouldn‘t hurt.
Still, as he moved closer, something gnawed inside him, though he couldn‘t place what it was. Forgotten so easily, it couldn‘t be that important. He had one thing on his mind right now, and now was the time to close the deal and get what Sarah needed. It was all that really mattered.
Pointing a finger at Skip, he said, “Stay!”
Skip would pose more trouble than an asset in the state he was in. It was safer for both of them if they were separated when he went inside. If something bad happened and Skip‘s premonition turned out to be true, then at least Ralph hadn‘t pull him into danger‘s way. It would suck though if that were the case. Would suck bad. Monster chewing bad.
“You don‘t listen. Why do they never listen? You‘ll see, you‘ll see I‘m right. You‘ll see, and you‘ll regret it. I‘ll regret it.”
Actual tears rolled from his eyes, making Ralph feel bad for the man. Skip was serious; he really believed it. If Ralph had a choice, or another way to get what he needed in the short time he had left, he would heed Skip‘s warning. Turning his back to Skip, he ran into the alley and entered the other side at the back of the store. Stone steps led to a metal door that stood half open. Great, now some zombie could have gotten inside, thanks to some asshole leaving the door open. With the SMG held at his hip, barrel pointed forward, he entered. Between the shelves he couldn‘t see much. The little light that entered lit just enough for him to see the door that led to the storefront.
Ralph paused and listened. He heard nothing moving around. He walked to the door. He pressed his ear against it, resting his free hand on the door handle. He heard, faintly, footsteps on the wooden floorboards. Someone was inside. He listened longer. The way the foot scraped, it had to be a zombie. Ralph backed away from the door. If he opened it, he would have more light to search for the medicine, and without it, he might not find what he needed. Ralph cursed. He had lost his maglite and he really could have used it. He had no choice. He needed to take care of the zombie inside and risk his life again, glad it was just one this time. He checked if a bullet was chambered. Great, at least the SMG was loaded. One shot, one hit, all he needed really. After shooting the gun, the zombies outside would beeline to the sound, so he had limited time to find the medicine and scram.
Ralph closed the back door. He didn‘t want the zombies to come into the storeroom once they heard the shot. The room was pitch black, and he felt his way back to the storefront door. He pulled the door ajar, paused to listen if the zombie‘s movement had changed, opened the door, and entered the store, the SMG ready to drop the zombie. His eyes went over the room. In the corner, near the fish tanks, stood a zombie in doctor scrubs with its back turned to him, shuffling forward every few seconds as if it could walk through the wall.
Not making a sound, Ralph crept closer, keeping his aim dead center on its head. His luck, what he needed would be right there. He didn‘t need to get it from the storeroom anymore. The bottles with pills were on the shelves under the aquariums. A quick grab and go was all he needed. His toe hit something, sending it rolling over the floor. A small red rubber ball dogs like to play with. It rolled in an arc and hit the zombie‘s feet. Ralph readied himself for the slow turn the zombie would make. It caught him by surprise when the zombie whirled around and pounced into an attack. Startled, Ralph pressed the trigger too soon. The SMG burst out its bullets, ripping the flesh as the bullets trailed up with the recoil, blasting the zombie‘s face off. It dropped down in front of his feet. Ralph held the trigger to the empty clicking of the gun. His heart was racing and he was breathing fast, as he lowered the gun and dropped it on the floor.
Outside, the zombies jerked up, standing at attention, and snapped toward the store. They moved, first one by one, and soon others followed in unison. A score of them were incoming, first shuffling slowly, and the closer they got, the more animated the got, moaning loudly, growling, and moving faster. Those he saw feeding on the corpses broke into a trot.
Ralph stared, paralyzed. The ferocious and fast way they came threw him off. When the first zombie hit the door, he started moving again. He hurried to the shelves and looked through the bottles. He found one with penicillin written on it. He grabbed as much he could carry and stuffed his pockets full.
A zombie banged its fist against the store window with the large diagonal crack in it. Relentlessly, it kept pounding its fist. The first crack spread. Ralph faltered. The window broke. The zombies crawled over each other to get through the opening. Fleeing inside the storeroom, Ralph slammed the door shut, just in time to see the first zombies heading for the door. A second later a heavy body crashed against it, followed by others. A good thing the door was a sturdy one and not a flimsy plywood thing. It held against the violence. The zombies wouldn‘t be bashing it down any time soon. Still, he had no intention of staying and finding out how long it would take them to break in.
He opened the back door to the sight of a group of three zombies closing in fast. This couldn‘t be happening, against three huddled so close and so near he stood no chance. Before he even tried to dodge them, they would have him surrounded, and without a weapon, he was defenseless. Ralph slammed the door shut, trapping himself inside a dark room. At both exits an angry crowd waited to tear him apart. He saw the hunger in their eyes, had seen it before, and it would not be pretty if they got to him. They would tear his flesh, killing him slowly, and after he died, they would eat him until the last
bone was bare. He would not turn. He would not become one of them. And maybe they knew that and hated him for it.
Ralph was already regretting not listening to Skip. He sat on the floor, listening to the thump of fists against the door and the incessant moans and growls turning into a frenzy. There was nothing he could do except wait and hope. Skip might try a rescue him or something else might distract the mob and lead them away. Either way, time would slip away, time Sarah might not have. Why didn‘t he listen? When did he ever listen? As sorry as he was, the next thing that happened made him feel like falling into an abyss of despair. The door handle turned.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Sarah found a small hill in the middle of the barren plains a way from the interstate and the RV, about two hundred yards it seemed, maybe a little more. She could see Blondie lying flat on the road in the same spot where he had collapsed and rammed the syringe in his heart. In the distance, he was just a speck. A speck on the dark road. She wondered if he would rise and join the ranks of the undead and wander aimlessly looking for fresh meat to eat.
She should leave. However, with only a slim idea where Ralph might be and no way to get to the place he went to without a map, could she really? She had only a fragment of a memory about him telling her he was going to find medicine for her and he would be back in two days. She knew he also told her the name of the town, but no matter how hard she thought about it, the name eluded her. Flashes came back of him showing her a map, marking the place.
He had marked it on a map. Sarah sat up straight. That was right. He left her a map in case she needed to find him. At the time it was just an extra precaution he took, for it was highly unlikely she would be going anywhere in the state she was in at the time. She needed that map if she wanted to look for him. She wasn‘t sure if Ralph would return today. If so, he could be arriving any time now, unless something happened to him. Her smile faltered. She shouldn‘t worry. He had proven many times that he was more than capable of handling himself and taking care of her. If not for him, she wouldn‘t have gotten this far. She would still be in their hometown, probably dead at her high school. And if she had managed to survive without him, the bomb would have consumed her. It was Ralph who had set things in motion that led to them leaving.
Ralph. Who would have thought? A dorky guy, with his dorky friends. Her face flushed. It was shame she felt. That she used to think like that. Think about the haves and haves not. Believing herself to be in the in crowd. Such silliness. It took a disaster like this to completely shake her from that shallow, fake life she led, and yet, at times, she couldn‘t help but revert back to such thinking. No matter how nice Ralph was, and capable, and dare she say, hot looking in that fearless way of his, his name, Ralph, Ralphie, sucked. She hated herself a little for this, not being able to let go of such a trivial thing, but she always hated his name. And because of it, she had been less than nice to him.
Maybe she should give him a nickname. A rough, cool sounding nickname, or convince him to take a new name. However much she thought about names, she couldn‘t come up with one. Sucky name or not, she couldn‘t help but to sort of care for him. He had something—a dark thing that passed in his eyes, that hardened his otherwise soft face, a thing that made her heart skip a beat—and this made him utterly attractive to her. She knew this from before, having seen it once when Jake called him Ralphie. For a second, a look had appeared on his face like he would rip Jake apart, but instead he walked away, leaving behind that moment in which he could have taken a stand and won. Jake must have noticed it too for he never called him that again to his face, but others did.
It had taken the end of the world to make Ralph into the man he was now, a man that she could be with. No, she shouldn‘t think like that. This world had no place for that anymore. Besides, did she deserve someone like him? And why, goddamn why, was she thinking about things like that, while she had so much already to deal with? She wasn‘t even sure what happened to the world. Was it really a virus gone wrong? That was what Blondie said, but the whole Blondie thing didn‘t add up. Neither did how the military reacted to the outbreak. It was all too prepared, too deliberate. The nuking of a whole town, killing the living to destroy the dead. This all had to be planned. It was almost like the army that had done this wasn‘t the same army sworn to protect the constitution and the citizens of the United States of America.
She lifted her arm to see her wound. It wasn‘t red anymore. Her skin had returned to its normal tone. She trailed a finger over the tiny, uneven marks her baby brother‘s teeth left. It still hurt. Soon it only would be a scar to remember him by and with age it would fade away. She didn‘t even have a picture of him. She wanted to go home for one before they left town, but the army came before she got the chance. When the helicopters had chased after them, they had to run, leaving everything behind. Everything she had ended up destroyed by the military, by people like Blondie and his dead friend, Raspy. It felt like a far off thing, but here she sat now, and there he lay. They took everything from her and he had the answer to why.
Sarah stood up. She couldn‘t stay here and think about the past. It might keep knocking on the door, wanting in, to submerge her in nostalgia, but for her own good, she should slam the door shut. There were things to do, mainly to survive and make sure Ralph was all right. She traced the bite mark once more. The medicine he was looking for wasn‘t needed anymore. Whatever that freak Blondie gave her had cured her infection, and much quicker than any antibiotic should. Hopefully Ralph didn‘t put himself in danger‘s way while searching for the medicine. She wouldn‘t forgive herself if something happened to him because of her.
Blondie stirred, sat up, and looked around. He should be able to see her, standing out in the open on the hill, but he didn‘t, at least it didn‘t seem like he did. A zombie, he had turned into a zombie. This made it more difficult for her to return. The wrench was on the ground somewhere near to where she killed Raspy, and she had been too stupid to take the gun. Now, she was left near defenseless.
Blondie zombie lurched forward. He got to the car, paused, opened the door, and got in. This was the first time she saw a zombie open a door. Could it be he wasn‘t a zombie? And since when did they start cars and drive away? The van sped forward, slinging on the road, and dove into the ditch, the wheel kept spinning for a few seconds until the engine sputtered and died. Blondie lurched out of the van, staggered around, tried to hold onto the car, and grabbed air instead. He crashed to the ground and did not get back up again. Okay, he wasn‘t a zombie after all.
That syringe he had stabbed himself with must have done something to stop him from turning into a zombie. He wasn‘t like her or Ralph, else he wouldn‘t have any need to inject anything after a bite. A normal human being. By rights, he should be shambling around, moaning for more meat, for blood, but instead he was a mess that couldn‘t even stand up straight and had collapsed in the middle of the road. The injection saved him, but it packed a punch, knocking him out and making him near useless. He hadn‘t even tried to catch her, or seek her out. He seemed in a hurry to get away, to flee. He must know how vulnerable he is, and that she could be near and gunning for him. And she was, now she certainly was.
This was her chance. A chance to secure the RV for Ralph‘s return, to get the freaks off her back, and to learn something about what was going on. She went down the hill and back to the RV. A plan built in her mind. She set out to do whatever needed to be done to keep that door closed to the past and open to the future.
CHAPTER NINE
Ralph stood with his nose almost touching the door handle to be able to see it, not wanting to believe it, but there it was. In growing shock, he watched as the door handle moved up and down, just not far enough to open the door, though getting there. He should have known it was possible. How else could a zombie in doctor scrubs be found in a locked pet store? The zombie got in somehow and left the back door open. They could now open doors—well at least some could. It wasn‘t clear what they could or
couldn‘t do.
The handle went up and down again.
Ralph‘s eyes grew wide, realizing that he didn‘t have a key. There was no way to bolt the door from the inside. He looked around, his breathing becoming erratic. With the little time he had, there was no way for him to find anything useful, even if it was just there at his feet. It was pitch black. He could see a hand in front of him. Feeling around, he grabbed the nearest store shelf and pulled with his weight. It didn‘t budge. Crap, bolted tight. He backed away from the door. He was screwed, utterly screwed. The only way he could get away was fighting, and it was a battle he would certainly lose.
Startled, he jumped up at the sound of the door handle behind him racking up and down hard. The zombies were pushing instead of pulling the door, or else they would have been inside. He wouldn‘t be that lucky with the door to the storefront, which opened inward. Only a matter of time.
“Get away! Bad people! Away from the door!” he heard Skip yelling from the outside.
The banging on the back door stopped. The front door banged open, and light spilled in from the few open cracks between the zombies amassed in the entryway. In their greed to get to him, they were entangled between each other and the doorpost. One zombie, half its body hanging inside, stretched its arm out, clawing for Ralph.
Putting all his weight behind it, Ralph pushed the back door open, hitting a zombie that lingered in front, cracking its head, and sending it sprawling. Ralph slammed the door shut behind him, giving himself more time by making those zombies inside have to figure out how to open the door.
Skip stood, backed against a wall. Three zombies were closing in on him. He was trying to keep them away by swinging his fists. He hit one, sending it staggering, while the others advanced. Ralph dashed forward to help him, grabbed a female zombie by the hair, yanked her back, and slammed his fist against the back of her neck, knocking her down. The next one, Ralph kicked and broke its knee, making it fall. Once down, he stomped its head, crushing it. The last one hugged Skip, biting his shoulder. With no shirt on, the zombie‘s infested teeth found naked skin and bit a chuck off. Skip howled in pain, raised his hands up, closed them together in a huge fist, and pummeled the zombie‘s face, cracking the bone wherever it hit. The zombie slid off Skip. In tears, he stood with his bloodied hands hanging at his sides.