by Russ Watts
“Through here,” said Schafer.
Two buses lay ahead at an intersection, each left as they were on the day the dead rose, abandoned in the road. The cars that had piled up behind them had created a funnel effect, and as they passed between the two buses Rilla found herself imagining that they were passing between two giant metallic statues. It felt like they were entering not just a foreign land but another time, a time when things like cars and electricity didn’t exist, and all that mattered was living through another day; the only way to achieve that was with your own bare hands and the will to live. Rilla knew she and her father had it but wasn’t convinced by Jeremy and Lyn. They kept lagging behind, using Victoria as an excuse.
Rilla looked at them fussing over their daughter who was perfectly capable of running. Jeremy’s eyes kept darting around nervously, whilst Lyn hardly looked at where they were going, so preoccupied was she in molly-coddling Victoria.
“Hey, hurry up,” said Rilla as she paused for them. “We have to keep going.”
Schafer and Magda were just ahead, and Rilla had passed the buses wearily. The heat sapped her energy, and they had not had to run anywhere in a long time. Taking the opportunity to catch her breath, she noticed Jeremy furtively glance behind him. He urged Lyn and Victoria on, but as he reached Rilla, it was obvious something was playing on his mind.
“What?” Rilla really didn’t care what was behind them as long as it stayed there.
“It’s nothing, just a zombie. It’s on its own. I think we left it back by that convertible.”
“Go on.” Rilla made them move on to catch up her parents and stared at the deserted road they had left behind them. She couldn’t see anything. Jeremy may have been mistaken. Still, it would pay to watch their backs. She let them take Victoria ahead, and decided to follow so she could monitor the road for any zombies that may decide to sneak up on them.
“Everything okay”? yelled Schafer.
Rilla smiled and waved. “Okay.”
Alerted by the noise, a corpse from the nearest house suddenly appeared in the doorway. It saw the figures running down the street and then Rilla waving her arms above her head. It opened its mouth, letting an almost silent groan escape its rotten lips.
Rilla began to walk slowly, keeping an eye on the others up ahead, and another on the road behind. She forgot that they could be anywhere and ignored the houses on either side of the road. They seemed empty and posed no threat. It was the vehicles she was more worried about in case anything came at them from the cars. They could be hiding any number of zombies who might appear in a second.
A gurgling noise caught her attention. It sounded in her left ear and grew louder very quickly. Turning around sharply, her eyes widened in shock as the corpse came running at her, its stiff arms reaching for her, its dead mouth impossibly wide.
“No!” Rilla uttered a brief scream and then instinctively dodged to the side as it tried to grab her. It missed her body, but one hand caught hold of her arm, and it whirled around to grab her again.
“Dad!” Rilla raised the heavy lamp base and froze. The dead man leering at her was hideous, but he had been well preserved inside his house for several months. His eyes were white, and his skin had become almost mummified. It felt like she was attacking an old man, and her hesitation allowed the zombie to close in on her.
She tried to use the lamp to defend herself, to hit the zombie around the head as her father had taught her to do, but it was too close, and all she succeeded in doing was dropping it as her wrist bumped against the zombie’s shoulder.
The zombie got both its cold hands on Rilla, and her blue jacket ripped open as the corpse pulled her towards it. Suddenly she was in its embrace and staring into the face of the man about to kill her. Although he was dead, he appeared very much alive, and if it wasn’t for the stench of rotting meat she would’ve been fooled into thinking he was a survivor in need of help. The zombie’s white eyes rolled back in its head, and it brought its face up to hers. Staring into its mouth, Rilla felt revulsion rise in her gut. Shivers broke out over her forearms and neck as it pulled her closer. She saw the dull silvery fillings in the back of its mouth, and the swollen purple tongue that was covered in a moldy growth of some sort. Sores and blisters permeated the thing’s face, yet they had dried up and cracked open making the dead man’s face all the more disgusting. Rilla felt the zombie’s cold hands digging into her arms, and though she tried to repel the corpse, it wouldn’t give up. As its deadly teeth neared her supple skin, she tried to turn her head away, but she succeeded in merely exposing her neck, which spurred it on.
Rilla screwed her eyes shut and tensed up, preparing herself to feel the pain of its teeth ripping through her jugular, when her face was drenched in something wet. It was cold and sticky, and Rilla opened her eyes again as the zombie let go of her. It fell away in slow motion, and she saw Jeremy plunge the knife into its skull again, ripping it out and plunging it back in, twisting it around inside the man’s skull like a corkscrew through a cork. Rilla spat the foul blood from her mouth and watched as her father appeared through the red mist swinging his bat. As Jeremy removed his knife, Schafer made the sure the zombie went down once and for all. The bat cracked the skull into pieces, and the man’s head resembled a bloody broken vase. The corpse lay motionless on the ground, and Rilla felt hands grab her again. This time was different. They were warm and comforting, and they were pulling her toward her father.
Schafer stood in front of her shouting something, but she heard nothing. Her eyes were transfixed on the dead zombie as if she had been hypnotized by it. Blood dripped from her face and filled her ears, and the warm hands on her shoulders began to shake her as Schafer continued shouting something. Rilla could see his mouth opening and closing, but it was as if no sound was coming out. Her eyes were drawn back to the man on the road. He had been going to kill her. He was going to eat her. Piece by piece, bite by bite, he would’ve eaten her alive. Rilla felt faint, her head swimming with a million thoughts that all ended up with her being eaten alive. The red in her eyes was giving way to a fuzzy gray that devolved into darkness, and it felt like a thousand bright stars were shimmering in her vision.
Schafer slapped his daughter’s face and caught her as she fainted.
“Jeremy, help me,” he said as he dropped his bat. Jeremy helped to carry Rilla to the side of the road as Lyn picked up Schafer’s baseball bat now smeared with brains and hair.
“What do we do now?” asked Jeremy, as they lay Rilla gently on the sidewalk.
“Just give me a minute.” Schafer began to wipe the blood from his daughter’s face. She had been brave, but she had also taken her eye off the ball, and it had almost cost her everything.
“Schafer, we can’t just hang around here. There’ll be more. The screams… They’ll have heard the—”
“Back off, Jeremy. Give me some space,” said Schafer, not trying to hide the venom in his voice. Jeremy had saved his daughter’s life, undoubtedly, but he was still an asshole.
“Rilla?” Magda sank to her knees beside her husband. “Meine Tochter! Is she okay?” she wheezed. “Is she—?”
“She’ll be fine.” Schafer had cleared her face of most of the blood. The corpse had failed to bite her, and Schafer knew it was just the shock. He had protected Rilla from the worst of it back at the motel. She deserved better than that. He should’ve warned her what it would be like. He knew he could’ve done more to prepare her.
“Magda, we need-”
“Here they come. Fuck, here they come.” Jeremy pointed at the buses, at the narrow funnel they had caused in the road. Four zombies appeared, and another two behind them.
Schafer picked Rilla up carefully. “Let’s go. Nothing’s changed. We keep going.”
Ignoring the increasingly frantic Jeremy, Schafer marched down the road away from the zombies. Magda kept by his side, and Schafer heard Jeremy, Lyn and Victoria follow. If they kept moving, he saw no reason why they couldn’t make it to Att
wood’s before the zombies caught up with them. Some were faster than others, but the ones behind were slow.
“Which way?” asked Magda. “Welche richtung, Schafer?” They neared another intersection. A gas station lay across the road, and a tanker blocked the road to the left. To the right lay rows of shops and houses with a few distant corpses ambling through the ghost town in their direction.
“Left,” announced Schafer without pausing. “Behind that tanker there’s another road that will take us almost all the way there.”
“Schafer, this is madness.” Jeremy scuttled up beside him. “Victoria is tired, and you can’t possibly hope to carry on all the way carrying Rilla. What if we’re attacked? What if those zombies catch us? What if—”
“Save it, Jeremy.” Schafer approached the tanker and refused to look at his companion. “We can’t go back, so we go forward. Even when you can’t see them, they’re all around us. If you think you’re safe anywhere out here—or back at your home—then you’re an idiot. I’m getting my daughter somewhere safe. You should be focused on doing the same instead of worrying about your own neck.”
Schafer was sweating profusely. The effort of carrying Rilla was taking more out of him than he had expected. The lack of food and the draining heat of the sun made him slow down more than he wanted to.
“Now, hold on, Schafer.” Jeremy grabbed Schafer’s arm forcing him to stop. “You said you knew what you were doing. I put my daughter’s life at risk because of you.”
Schafer glared at Jeremy. He didn’t have time for this. The zombies behind were getting closer and growing in number. They had drawn others, and there were almost twenty now. Schafer blinked away a droplet of sweat from his eyelid. “You do what you like. I’m going to carry on. Magda and Rilla are coming with me to Attwood’s.”
Lyn dragged Victoria to the shady side of the tanker that offered a little shelter from the sun. “Are we there yet?” she asked. “I can hear them. Can’t you hear them?”
The zombies were making a lot of noise and Schafer realized the noise wasn’t just coming from the ones behind them.
“Now, hold on, Schafer,” said Jeremy as he turned away. Jeremy tried to grab Schafer’s arm again, but he shrugged it off and walked past the rear of the tanker.
“Magda?” Schafer stood in the road with his daughter lying in his arms, wondering suddenly if Jeremy wasn’t right.
Magda joined her husband’s side and looked at him. “Was ist—”
“Oh, Lord.” Jeremy rounded the tanker to find Schafer and Magda staring at the path ahead of them. The road to Attwood’s was full of corpses. There had to be at least a hundred or more filling the road, blocking any route through to the far end.
“Now what do we do?” asked Jeremy. “We can’t go back and we can’t go forward; just what the hell do we do now?”
Schafer looked at Rilla and was reminded of how he used to carry her up to bed like this when she was younger. She would inevitably fall asleep whilst watching TV, reluctant to go upstairs to be on her own. He would carry her up gently and place her in bed without even waking her. She looked the same now: carefree, relaxed and innocent. He couldn’t let anything happen to her, he wouldn’t.
“We have to… to…” He couldn’t actually think what to do. They were almost surrounded. Going back to Jeremy’s or forward to Attwood’s meant a fight, and he wasn’t going to be any use carrying Rilla. He could see that Magda was struggling with the heat, and even Jeremy and Lyn looked exhausted. Victoria was silently sucking two fingers in her mouth, her eyes downcast. They were all relying on him, waiting for a decision, for an order.
A zombie suddenly appeared at the back of the tanker, its body clattering into the axle and arms scratching against the hull. It stumbled forward toward them, its intent all too obvious. Magda screamed, and Lyn pushed Victoria behind her while Jeremy began to back off.
“What do we do, Jeremy, what do we do?” Lyn shouted hysterically.
“Take it out, Jeremy,” said Schafer, calmly.
The zombie approached, its feet scraping across the tarmac, and pustules around its mouth oozing dark slime. The woman had worked in the garage once, and her slim figure had drawn many admiring glances. Now her ravaged body was riddled with maggots and blow-flies, and her arms were missing large chunks of flesh.
“What the fuck?” Jeremy stepped back again. “What the…?”
Schafer knew then that they had no way of fighting their way anywhere. They were scared. All of them were scared. He couldn’t risk giving Rilla to Jeremy to carry. He would dump her as soon as they got into any kind of trouble. Lyn had Victoria to take care of, and Magda simply didn’t have the strength. Schafer sighed.
“We have to go. There’s a narrow alleyway over there behind that station wagon. It’ll double-back to the buses, but we’ll have to take it and find somewhere else to hold up for now. Attwood’s will have to wait.”
As they all backed away from the advancing zombie, another appeared from behind the tanker, then a third, and then a fourth.
“Schafer?” Magda looked at her husband who was gently lowering his daughter to the ground. Ignoring her, he grabbed the baseball bat from Jeremy and pointed it at them.
“Go. All of you. Down that alley.”
“What are you doing? Are you coming?” asked Jeremy as he began to trudge away toward the alley, his eyes locked on the party of zombies.
“Oh, I’m coming all right and I’ll bring Rilla with me.” Schafer turned back to the zombies, his face set in grim determination. The plan had been shot to shit, but they would make it another way. He just had to figure out a way around the horde ahead of them. He had to figure out a way to get Jeremy on board. As it was, he was just as much of a liability as his little girl. Schafer lifted the baseball bat in both hands and gripped it firmly as his eyes focused on the nearest zombie. “I’ve just got to take care of business first.”
CHAPTER 6
The last lock of hair fell to the floor silently, and Kyler held up a mirror in front of his daughter’s face. She looked at herself blankly, and it was obvious she hated it. She had gone along with him reluctantly, but ultimately he had not given her a choice. The whole process had taken less than ten minutes, and Kyler felt relieved when it was over. He was more nervous about cutting his daughter’s hair with the scissors than he was the end result.
Charlie shrugged and looked at her father in the mirror behind her. “Happy now?”
Kyler shook his head. “This has got nothing to do with me being happy, and you know it.”
Charlie got off the stool and brushed herself down, thick clumps of blonde hair cascading to the ground and joining the hair already there. They had arranged to cut her hair outside so at least they didn’t make a mess inside.
“Here.” Kyler passed her the mirror, and she took it to look at hew new haircut once more. “Clear that up,” he said as he trudged back inside.
“Yes, Sir,” muttered Charlie. She had known he wouldn’t offer to help clean up afterwards and already prepared herself for it. It was the end of another warm day, and little strands of hair had fallen down her top causing her back to itch.
“Very…” Charlie searched for the right words to describe her new haircut. Nothing came to mind. Kyler had effectively turned her into a boy, chopping off her long blonde hair that her mother had used to tell her was her best feature. Now most of it was blowing around the garden, and she looked more like a young man than a girl. Her father refused to explain why she had to do it other than to say it was more practical. She had tried to counter him by arguing that it was practical to stay sober, to be on guard with the increasing zombie activity outside the main fence, but he had refused to be drawn on his drinking and insisted they cut her hair that day. He had muttered something about how the zombies would be able to grab her long hair if they ever went outside, so she may as well get used to it being short now.
Sighing, Charlie went to the garage to put the stool and scissors back.
Kyler hadn’t even used a decent pair of scissors when he’d butchered her hair and used a rusty pair from the garage. She was surprised he had any since he spent most of his time fashioning weird weapons from what tools he had. As she placed the stool down quietly, she noticed something new on the workbench, and suddenly realized where the steak knife set had disappeared to. There was a pair of gardening gloves with a knife neatly bound to each finger. They reminded her of the glove from an old horror film, though these would no doubt be more comfortable to wear. She picked one up and slipped her hand inside. The glove was a size too big, but it remained in place, and she swished it through the air, imagining herself decapitating a zombie. She had never struck a person in her life, nor had she had to deal with one of the dead. Still, it was interesting to pretend. Kyler obviously thought about it a lot more than her; he had spent all day making these gloves.
Charlie slipped the glove off and put it back. As she went back outside, she noticed the warm air carried the strong moans of the dead clearly today. Either there were a lot of them close by, or something had piqued their interest. Carefully, Charlie walked to the driveway and looked at the fence. There were no more than three at the fence, rattling on it like caged prisoners. She wasn’t sure if they wanted to get in, or if she wanted to get out. The moaning sound was further off, carried to her by the gentle breeze. Shrugging, Charlie returned to the house. Whatever had drawn them away wasn’t her problem. Since the screaming woman had arrived and died on the day that her mother had been taken away from her, Charlie had wondered if there were others. The woman might have been living with her family, although that didn’t explain why she was on her own. Surely nobody would leave their family behind? If the woman had been with others, then perhaps she had been the one who had been forced out to look for help. Perhaps it was her family who were being slaughtered out there, forced to leave their house in search of food. Perhaps the thousands of zombies around Peterborough had found them.
Charlie shuddered. Her own morbid thoughts were too depressing, and she locked them away as she made her way into the downstairs bathroom. She put her hands on the cold rim of the sink and stared into the dusty mirror on the wall. She looked not just tired but terrible, in fact. It wasn’t just the drain of living alongside the dead that took all her energy, but living with her father. Either side of the fence there were problems and pressures, just different ones.