The railroad curves to one side, following a gentle arc into the distance. There’s an overgrown baseball diamond and some burned out buildings that look like a clubhouse and a garage.
Dark figures stagger down the road toward me. These are not spacemen, and I’m left wondering if the last few minutes were a hallucination—a fantasy constructed by my mind while dreaming about the stars?
I run.
There’s a reason the marauders never go out at night. Smell, sound, sight. The night suits Zee just fine. For me, though, sight is critical to survival. I won’t last long in the open, and yet I can’t go to ground. Both Ferguson and David before him warned me about the danger of staying in one spot and allowing Zee time to build up numbers. The night belongs to Zee.
My heart pounds within my chest. I’m running so hard it hurts. I can’t go on like this, so I slow my pace to a jog. Darkened houses, burned out cars, dead bodies lying on the street—this is the stuff of nightmares. I was better off on the bridge.
There’s a strip mall to one side. I recognize a large donut on the roof. I remember seeing this almost a block away when Jane was attacked next to the bus a few days ago. That gigantic donut, with its peeling paint and rough, almost concrete looking surface, is a landmark, giving me a point of reference and buoying my spirits. I know where I am.
Broken concrete crunches under my boots with a rhythmic thud that betrays life to Zee, and zombies turn toward the sound as I jog through the intersection.
I can’t run forever.
I can’t win in a fight against Zee.
I have to use the one thing that gives me an advantage over zombies. Brains. I have to outsmart them. David was clever. He took us to that old house on the hill, knowing it had been cleaned out long ago, knowing it sat on an acre of land, knowing it had a strong, iron fence and two distant exits.
What would David do? He’d be smart and use whatever he had around him.
Looters have ransacked the strip mall. Broken glass lies scattered on the pavement along with clothing mannequins and smashed TVs or computer monitors, I’m not sure which. I guess there wasn’t too much difference between them other than size. And it’s surprising to see these relics that once meant so much to us lying crushed on the road.
I don’t see anything I can use. David would, but I don’t. I need to look harder. Think. THINK.
Zee stalks me.
I trip on an overturned office chair and collide with a dented car. I’m not hurt, but hitting the sheet metal door made a hell of a racket.
The shadows come alive.
I was aware of a scattering of zombies further down the road, but several more walk out from a shattered storefront, surprising me with how close they are. David warned me about this. He told me, it’s not the zombie you see that gets you, and yet here I am, bumbling around in the dark, waking the dead.
Got to think fast. If I start shooting, I’m going to bring Zee in from miles around, but even if I had a baseball bat or a crowbar, there’s too many of them to fight.
I need to find a weapon other than a gun.
Crouching for a second, I slip my gun back in the ankle holster, being sure to clip the leather strap in place. The gun is effectively useless because of the deafening noise it makes. I need to free up my hands and only resort to using the gun as my last option.
Strip mall. There’s got to be something here I can use to my advantage.
As zombies stumble out of the darkness groaning, I realize the strip mall is long, boxing me in. It’s made up of a dozen shops lined up next to each other. If I run, I’ll run into more zombies coming down the street. But weakness is in the eye of the beholder. A weakness for one person is a strength for another. This strip mall might box me in, but it also boxes Zee. If I can get above Zee, get up on those rooftops, I’ll be free to move around. And I can pick my points of entry and exit.
There has to be access points at the rear of the mall, but that means going into the shadows. I hate this. I DAMN WELL HATE THIS! Darkness terrifies me, and not just because of Zee. There’s no control. No hope. In the darkness there lies only death.
Arms reach for me out of the shadows.
Instead of acting on fear and madly running away and eventually running into more zombies walking down the road, I duck beneath the outstretched arms of the closest zombie and run at him. I have to face my fears or I’m dead. I drop my shoulder, planting it firmly into Zee’s ribs and knocking him on his ass. Damn, that felt good, but there’s no time to celebrate. I’ve got to get to that rooftop.
The quickest way is to go through one of the stores.
Glass crunches beneath my boots.
It’s pitch black inside the store, but I catch the outline of a fire extinguisher on the wall as a zombie passes in front of a small window at the rear of the store. I grab the extinguisher. It’s full. It’s heavy. I can use this.
Zee lurches out of the darkness, snarling and grabbing for me. I swing the fire extinguisher, connecting with the side of his head and he crashes into a shop counter, knocking god knows what to the floor. Thousands of tiny beads or M&Ms or something scatter across the tiled floor making one hell of a racket. They seem to bounce forever, slowly losing their kinetic energy. It takes a minute or so for the sound of what could be torrential rain to fade into silence.
I dart around the counter and into the back of the store.
The rear door is locked. Stupid, so stupid. I rattle the handle, hoping the door will spring open, but that’s wishful thinking.
“Of course it’s locked,” I chide myself. “Hazel, what were you thinking? Did you think everyone would just leave their doors unlocked in the middle of the apocalypse?”
I rattle the handle again, but my effort is pointless.
“I am so fucking stupid!”
Holding the fire extinguisher with both hands—one high, one low—I pound on the lock. I’m making enough noise to wake the dead, or the undead as it may be. The handle snaps but the door doesn’t open. I’m making it worse. I bring the extinguisher thundering down on the barrel lock, catching the lip of the lock with each blow, but still the door holds.
Zee growls.
I raise the fire extinguisher above my shoulder, ready to bring it crashing down into his face, but I can’t see him. A shelf falls, knocking me to one side. Zee crawls over the metal shelving, crushing me against the floor.
I scream.
Zee howls.
I can’t reach my gun. My arms are free, but my chest, hips and legs are trapped beneath the six-foot shelving. Boxes of books, magazines and pens scatter across the floor.
Zee grabs at my throat, choking me, cutting off my air supply.
Tiny pinpricks of light appear in the darkness as I fight to stay conscious.
I still have hold of the fire extinguisher, but I can’t bring it to bear on Zee. Frantic for any last chance at life, I fumble with the thin metal pin securing the extinguisher. My fingers twitch, flicking the pin to one side. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m doing something, anything in those final few seconds as my brain is starved of oxygen. Grabbing at the handle, a burst of carbon dioxide explodes around us.
Zee releases his grip. He’s confused, bewildered. He’s certainly not hurt. The spray of CO2 went nowhere near him.
I drag the extinguisher closer, directing the nozzle in his face and fire again. White clouds envelop us. Ice clings to his face.
I cough, dragging myself from beneath the shelf and get to my feet. Zee growls, but he’s facing the door. He’s facing where I was, not where I am.
Smell, sound, sight. That order is working against him.
I unleash another burst aimed at his face and he turns, lashing out with his arms, but it’s as though someone’s thrown a sack over his head.
White frost sticks to his cheek.
He can’t see me in the dark. He can no longer smell me, and the sound must be confusing. It’s a hiss, a burst of sound like a rush of wind, and I see how I can use fire
extinguishers to protect myself. They’re everywhere. Every business has at least one of them, so supplies are plentiful. I’ve yet to see if they’re effective in daylight, but at the moment there’s a strange silence as Zee sniffs at the air, trying to pick up on my scent again. Something about the CO2 or the cold is blocking his sense of smell. It’s temporary, but I’ll take any advantage I can.
With a burst of strength, I slam the extinguisher against his head, crushing his skull against the metal door and he sinks lifeless to the floor.
Another two blows and the lock breaks.
The door still hasn’t opened, but I can pull the shattered handle away and get at the internal parts of the lock with my fingers. Slowly, with painstaking care, I manage to move the inside bolt and the door swings open.
The dead zombie falls out the door.
More zombies stumble through the store behind me, bumping into clothes racks and shelving. Outside, several zombies converge on the door. They’ve heard the noise and are herding on instinct, closing in on a conflict that can only mean a chance to feed.
I glance around, wanting to get a feel for the alley behind the strip mall. There’s a couple of fixed ladders leading to the roof to allow for maintenance access, but they’re deliberately set out of reach to stop vagrants from climbing up. I need a ladder to reach them.
Keeping my back to the cinderblock wall, I creep away, but Zee growls in the darkness. Zee can either smell, hear or see me. Time to test my theory.
Stepping forward as they converge, I spray a burst of CO2 from the fire extinguisher, giving Zee a good long blast for what feels like a minute. It was probably only ten to fifteen seconds, but I’m sure to spray each of them across the face before ducking away. They continue advancing toward the door, missing me entirely as I scoot further down the alley, taking pains to be quiet. Zee gropes at the door, searching for me.
Noise can’t be avoided. There’s a dumpster. I check for brakes on the roller wheels before giving it a shove and pushing it beneath one of the maintenance ladders. Zee responds immediately, turning and running after me.
I’m learning.
Zee conserves his energy if he thinks there’s an easy meal to be had, but escape his clutches and he takes the hunt to a new level.
Zombies sprint down the alley toward me.
I throw the fire extinguisher on top of the dumpster along with my backpack and climb up, grabbing the ladder and racing to the roof. I don’t want to risk giving Zee the chance to tear at the dumpster and pull it to one side.
Once on top, it’s clear to see I’m not the first one to think of this strategy. Empty tin cans litter one corner of the roof. There’s no one up here, but it looks like there were dozens of people living here for quite some time. Torn camping tents, empty gas canisters, even a rifle and live bullets lie scattered on the rooftop.
The strip mall is one continuous roof connected by small, waist-high brick walls. I feel quite proud of myself. I can’t wait to tell someone how I outsmarted Zee, although outsmarted is a bit of a stretch. Using the fire extinguisher was blind, desperate luck. But I understand the need to stay one step ahead of Zee.
Peering over the edge of the roof, I see dozen of zombies in the alley. I know what David would do. He’d look for supplies. He’d want to look for anything of any use, and then he’d hunker down at one end of the mall roof, planning to depart from the far end in the morning, so that’s exactly what I do.
There’s a few blankets, but what’s left of them is rotten. A torn sleeping bag is waterlogged.
The discarded rifle is useless. From what I can tell in the darkness, there’s been a misfire and the breech has been damaged. The barrel is rusted. It must have been sitting up here for years.
The ammo might as well be spent. It’s 9mm while I’m packing a Glock using 38 rounds. If only this was a movie, everything would fall into place instead of going to shit every time I think I’ve got a break.
Most of the stuff on the roof is junk, but my eye picks out a familiar shape lying beside a vent.
“Hellooooo, Nathan,” I whisper, picking up a dented aluminum baseball bat. The rubber handle has long since perished, crumbling in my fingers, but this will come in handy.
I head down to the roof of the first shop overlooking the intersection, wanting to keep Zee bottled up beneath me at this end of the strip mall.
What the hell did I see out there on the railway bridge? Am I going crazy? Spacemen in the woods?
We’re all crazy in the apocalypse. Crazy became fashionable a long time ago, but astronauts? Who are they? What were they doing? Where did they go? And Zee? Zee was mesmerized, but not just by the astronauts. The eyes. I saw them, staring at me. There was no innocence, no malice, just raw animal instinct, and yet for every zombie that approached me out there, there was at least one that just stood still watching with dark intent. And what the hell happened on the track when we were on horse back? Ferguson was shaken by that. Zee has gone from predictable to volatile.
As I fall asleep, looking up at the donut sign, I hope Steve is alive. I hope he is still out there somewhere. I have to find him. I have to.
Chapter 07: Mall
Sunshine has never been more welcome. After a cold, miserable night on the rooftop, punctuated with fleeting bouts of sleep, the sun offers the promise of a beautiful day.
Ferguson had some bread stashed in the side pouch of his bag. It’s not recognizable by any of the standards from before the outbreak, but it’s food. It’s hard, dense, and tasteless, but it sits in my stomach like a rock, giving me the illusion of a full meal. There were raisins in it, I think. Whatever they were, they were small, black and chewy and got stuck in my molars. I pick them out while watching Zee from the rooftop.
My legs dangle over the edge as I sit on the edge of the shopping mall roof. Most of the zombies are ignoring me, but there’s lots of them. The few that look up snarl and grab at the air as though I were no more than a few feet away.
The apocalypse is nothing if not undignified. There’s so little we do today that even remotely echoes life before. Everything’s a struggle, even such mundane daily routines as going to the bathroom.
Bathroom?
A room with a working bath?
Please.
Our toilets at the commune are long drops, pits in the ground that allow us to reuse sewage as fertilizer each spring. Out here in the city, there’s no privacy, no decorum, no dignity.
I find some scraps of newspaper stuffed into one of the vents, probably to keep the smell of corpses from wafting up to the roof, and use that as toilet paper. Actual toilet paper would be quite a find these days. At the commune, we use a shared rag, rinsed between wipes and washed daily. Newspaper is a treat. Oh, that sounds wrong on so many levels, and mentally I add toilet paper to my list of the things we left behind. As far as priorities go, toilet paper ranks above my Xbox, perhaps even above freshly baked muffins. One day, I tell myself as I clean up from the proverbial “number ones” and “number twos,” one day we’ll have toilet paper again.
Plastic bags are perhaps the only thing to survive the zombie apocalypse intact. They get dirty but they’re easy enough to clean and hang out to dry. They don’t break down so they’re really useful. And there’s so many of them. I can’t help but grin at “answering the call of nature” in something as distinctly unnatural as a plastic shopping bag, but there’s a method to my madness.
After pulling up my pants, I sling the plastic bag into the intersection and Zee goes wild. Scent, sound, sight. Scent is so dominant for them, they can’t help but fight over the scraps of soiled newspaper, tearing the plastic bag to shreds. David would be proud. It’s a smart decoy. Well, he’d probably roar with laughter, but he’d like the ingenuity.
I sling the backpack over my shoulders and grab the fire extinguisher along with Nathan, my new best friend and personal baseball bat. A light jog across the rooftops, and I’m moving in the opposite direction to Zee converging on the intersect
ion.
The drop from the ladder at the far end of the strip mall is about eight to ten feet by my reckoning, but I have no choice. I’ve got to take the fall onto the concrete. I dare not backtrack to the dumpster. As soon as I’m down, I’m leaving a scent trail. The less the better. David has made a marauder out of me after all. All the tips he gave us are coming back to me, and they make sense.
Long grass grows out of cracks in the concrete. There’s a strip of grass on the far side of the alley forming a backyard for a workshop. I toss my pack, baseball bat and the fire extinguisher onto the grass to keep the noise to a minimum.
Just don’t sprain your ankle, I think as I drop to the concrete and roll forward, trying to minimize the impact.
“What’s the plan, Haze,” I mumble to myself, picking up my stuff. I’m role playing, trying to make sense of what has only ever been a vague notion—rescue Steve.
“Nimble. Stay on the move,” I say, gripping the baseball bat in my right hand and the fire extinguisher in the left. The tiny meter on the side indicates half-empty. The pie-graph like gauge is 90% red with only a tiny sliver of green close to the full mark, suggesting anything less than completely full is bad. I have no idea what that really means. Is it just a tactic to keep fire extinguishers topped up and ready to go? Or do they lose their effectiveness as the pressure drops? 50% could be useless, unable to produce the big white clouds I saw last night, but I resist the temptation to check. I have no idea when or where I’ll find my next fire extinguisher, but I intend to switch them as often as possible.
“You have to accept he could be dead,” slips from my lips almost involuntarily as I think through what I could face today. “You may never find out what happened to him.”
It’s strange, but I feel as though I’m talking to David and Jane. This is what they’d say. They’d support me in my quest, but they’d want me to be realistic about the odds.
“We need to get more tablets. Without them, all this is pointless. If there’s a chance to find Steve, wonderful, but the tablets have to be the priority.”
All Our Tomorrows Page 10