Neighbors

by Paul Z. Ford

  As he crossed a small bridge over a drainage ditch, he saw that the road was coming to a junction with a recently expanded cross street. The street was a popular shortcut for people trying to get around the congested highway, and construction expanding it to three lanes each direction finished earlier in the year. Ash used it sometimes to get off the highway and cut back toward his apartment during rush hour, but it was always almost as packed as the highway he was trying to avoid. Now, he could see straight ahead at the street lights, shopping center, pharmacy building, and large church to the right. The church parking lot was fenced in and ran just along the road in the direction he was heading. He passed some trees and suddenly witnessed the full view of the enormous building of worship.

  There were people here. Tents had been set up at some point in the large asphalt lot, and they were in various states of disarray. A couple had fallen, and there was debris strung over the football field-sized area of the parking lot. Broken cots, blankets, clothing, and stacks of torn apart cardboard boxes and crushed plastic bins lined the area. As Ash approached, he was able to see overturned medical equipment and storage, and several large military trucks with large red crosses on the side all filling the space.

  But the most obvious and shocking part was the horde of people mulling around, shoulders slumped, facing the church building. The double doors were wide open, and hundreds of people were standing along the stairs, in the entryway, and Ash assumed throughout the church itself. He stopped the car and gaped in awe at the still mass.

  “Holy. Shit,” he muttered aloud, sitting in his brother-in-law’s car soaking in the unusual sight. Then he noticed several of the closest bodies turning toward him, reacting to his presence and the soft sound of the idling engine. Some began to slowly shuffle his direction, unfocused eyes honing in on him as their target. Teeth and jaws began to work and snap as the first movers gained momentum and attracted the attention of others. Ash watched as their movement resembled a wave. More and more of the multitude of creatures turned and began walking his way. He inspected the eight-foot-high chain-link fence between his vehicle and the approaching horde, deciding it was sturdy enough for him to get a closer look.

  Ash, more amazed and curious than frightened, opened the driver’s door and stepped out to watch the movement of the bodies coming toward him. He quickly reached in and grabbed his carbine, checking that it was loaded with a round in the chamber. He held it loosely to his chest and left the car idling with the driver’s door open.

  The first of the fenced-in walkers began to reach the fence as Ash approached at a safe distance. He saw most of them had obvious and traumatic injuries. The first one to reach the barrier, a woman wearing jeans and a puffy winter coat, was missing one eye and the ear on the right side of her face. Her facial features were disturbing, muscles and tendons exposed and twitching as she opened and closed her mouth. She, and the next group of about ten mindless creatures, reached up and grabbed the chain-link, pulling and shaking it noisily. One young kid, he couldn’t have been older than a teen, was missing his right arm from the elbow. Dried blood covered his shirt and pants as he growled and shook the metal with his remaining arm. Another dragged behind him a set of dried out and damaged intestines, still connected to the open hole in his torso. Each of the others showed similar signs of trauma, missing limbs and fingers, gaping wounds, and exposed organs.

  More and more approached, pushing and reaching forward as each layer got crushed harder into the fence. Ash could hear crunching from breaking bones in the closer portion of the assembly of monstrous people, and the row touching the fence began to tear their flesh and clothes against the unyielding metal as they were pressed harder from behind.

  Ash watched, disgusted and amazed, the mass of repulsive writhing flesh in front of him. His ears were full of creaking, cracking, groaning, and growling, as he considered continuing onward. He looked down the road to his left, toward his direction of travel, and saw four or five of the shuffling creatures coming his way along the road.

  Growing more curious, he raised the carbine and pointed it down the road toward the closest figure. He already had empirical evidence that these things were dead. Seeing the man attacked by a crowd of them, them biting and tearing at him like animals, and then his dead body rising up and joining them had shown him enough to realize this was no ordinary infection. These were not just violent people with some sickness. These were dead people. Killed by other dead people.

  But they weren’t smart, and they weren’t fast. He could tell both of those facts from his limited experience observing them. The corpses may be able to bite and kill and infect others, but he could outsmart and outrun them.

  He sighted the creature and pulled the trigger. The crack and recoil of the small rifle rang up his arm and shoulder. The creature kept walking slowly, as if nothing happened. Ash wasn’t even sure if he hit her. He raised the weapon again, carefully aiming the iron sight center mass of the slow moving mark. Another report rang over the din of the gnashing would-be biters behind the fence. This time, he saw her reel backwards as the bullet hit where intended. Unbelievably, she continued walking despite the bloody wound Ash opened in her chest. She had on a light-colored shirt that began to darken as blood hemorrhaged out of the injury. Ash turned his attention back toward the pushing crowd. The front creatures were now being pressed into pulp against the obstruction. Ash raised his carbine and carefully selected one of the creatures closest to him. He aimed at the figure’s forehead, too close to miss, and pulled the trigger easily.

  The man’s head exploded with the impact of the bullet, too close to its neighbor to move or fall. But the eyes and face drooped and its snapping jaw went suddenly slack. Ash was satisfied that he had learned something critical about avoiding those biting teeth. He turned and casually walked back to the exposed driver’s seat, reaching in once he arrived and replacing his carbine in its upright position between the seats.

  Before he could climb in, however, he heard a sharp metallic snapping sound. Startled, he jumped and peered around at the bloody mass of bodies adjacent to the road. Another sharp snap sounded through the air and was followed by a groaning sound that reminded Ash of failing machinery. Then he saw the tall fence begin to press and bend toward him as the frenzied bodies continued to advance. Once the fence was damaged, it fell quickly. The connecting railing at the top ripped free from the vertical supports holding it up. First, a section as wide as his car broke free and fell forward across the thin grass median and onto the blacktop of the shoulder. The center of the horde suddenly fell forward, still pushed from behind, and Ash’s eyes widened at the oceanic movement of hundreds of bodies falling onto each other. They poured forward, struggling and fighting individually to push themselves up and forward. As the random mass fought and began to rise, Ash jumped in the car and shut the door. He hurriedly rolled up his window and slammed the vehicle into gear.

  The rest of the fence fell forward in sections down the road. As one was pushed down, the next was bent critically forward. Then as that section fell, the next was damaged and pushed into a distorted shape. Along the edges of the mass, where it was thinner, the figures stepped quickly into the road in front of the car. In a matter of seconds, Ash was surrounded by hundreds of them.

  The first of the biting corpses reached the side of the Corolla as he began to advance. They growled and reached their arms to the car, banging and hitting on the windows as Ash frantically slammed the accelerator to the floor. He overcompensated, spinning the rear tires as he tried to escape. The car fishtailed slightly and knocked a dozen bodies away as he quickly recovered. He hit a group of figures advancing toward his windshield with arms raised. Two of the moving corpses skidded up onto the hood and shattered the glass, turning Ash’s view into a spiderweb. His car lurched and crunched over the bodies underneath as even more began to grab at all sides of the car. The asphalt was wet with blood and smashed viscera as Ash desperately tried to regain his momentum and accelerate forward
away from the threat. Arms and hands smashed at his windows, and faces snapped at the air around the car as they gained numbers and attempted to get to their fleshy target inside. He once again slammed the gas, now beginning to realize the car was getting stuck in the spent bodies of the dead.

  Ash quickly looked around him, sweat now pouring freely down his face, and knew he would be overwhelmed soon. Beyond the dozens of bodies already at the car there were several hundred more recovering from the tangled mess of the broken fence but clearly advancing his way.

  He cursed and grabbed the carbine, placing it between his legs. He grabbed the backpack and awkwardly slung it over both shoulders while twisting sideways in his seat. He readied himself, remembering to grab the keys out of the ignition and slip them into the front pocket of his jeans. Then he took a breath and pushed the door open as hard as he could into the advancing creatures.

  He ducked low and ran out through the grabbing hands of the attackers, pushing hard to avoid their biting teeth. He shook and pulled away from the grasp of those who were able to get hands on his pack. He struggled away from the last strong grip and staggered, breathless already, into the chain-link fence on the opposite side of the road. He looked back at the approaching figures, only a few feet away, when a loud growl sounded in his ear. He yelped and jumped away from the fence. Two of the dead, dressed in firefighter uniforms, stuck their fingers through the links and gnashed at the metal.

  With no time to think and only a couple feet between himself and the attacking horde, he turned and began to run along the grass median toward the wider shortcut road ahead. The bodies turned together in a mass as he quickly passed them. The largest part of the horde filled both sides of the small road and forced him forward along his hasty path. He trudged and struggled with the weight of the pack, the weapon, and the rough median. The lunging figures were too close for him to raise his rifle, so he continued by pushing nearby bodies with his right hand and dodging toward the fence on his left.

  After several hundred feet, Ash was severely hampered by exhaustion. He escaped the restrictive path by running beyond the fence. The ground sloped slightly downward into a drainage tunnel that ran under the intersection. Ash only briefly considered defending himself from inside the narrow tunnel, but the thought of hundreds of these things piling around him outside quickly changed his mind. The more open corner had allowed him a few extra feet of space, but the horde still advanced, untiring, reaching the path he trudged just a moment before. He staggered hurriedly up the small incline and into the usually busy street. On flat ground he picked up speed and jogged as quickly as he could across to the opposite corner of the intersection, where buildings gave way to an undeveloped plot of wild land. As he crossed, he planned to make it to the highway and escape the slow-moving mass of figures. Instead, he saw more of them ahead. They were streaming down the road from the direction of the highway, coming out of the entry to the church parking lot, and continuing to mass through the intersection behind him.

  Now with some distance, he raised his carbine and fired wildly at the walking forms. He carefully released one shot at a time, but it was useless without the ability to stop and aim. He stepped back into the low drain on this side of the road. His perspective lowered as the ground dropped, and he was overwhelmed by the massive amounts of groaning and growling bodies advancing toward him. He fired the last few rounds madly into the approaching mass as his panic continued to rise. The carbine locked back the firing mechanism on the empty magazine with a distinctive loud snap, and Ash turned and ran into the adjacent underbrush and trees. He tumbled hysterically into the woods, blinded by bramble and terror. His feet fell below him and he accelerated uncontrollably down a steep hill, ending at the bottom facing back from where he came.

  Now, several minutes later with a freshly loaded rifle and the ability to breathe and move again, Ash shakily stood. He watched the small hill with measured paranoia, waiting for the dead creatures to arrive, as he retreated deeper into the woods.

  Chapter 18

  Aggression

  Hysterical people crowded and tripped over each other to flee in all directions around the Wal-Mart parking lot. A handful of rapid pops from nearby pistol fire signaled to all gathered to panic. Kahn tentatively opened his eyes to the gunfire and sudden screaming. He was on his hands and knees on the elevated platform, seemingly protected from the rushing crowd.

  Griffin, Kahn’s would-be murderer, was also distracted by the sudden and confusing retreat of his father’s listeners. He swung wide to his left, pointing his pistol ahead and trying to fight through the pushing throng. Kahn looked around and saw the two other men who had dragged him here also pointed pistols. Llewelyn was standing with his jaw loose, staring above the crowd where his cohorts could not yet see. It only took a few seconds of dispersal for Kahn to see what had caused the unexpected hysteria, saving his life.

  Growls and the mayhem of biting teeth tore into the flesh of some of the unlucky people in the rear of the audience. The young woman whose initial scream broke the crowd apart was fighting to keep herself upright against the attacker that had grabbed her from behind. Blood ran freely from the bite wound in her shoulder, exposed from the pastel dress she wore, splattering and staining the ground in front of her. Her eyes were wide and panicked as she screamed and fought against the heavy body holding her and pushing her down. As they all watched, she fell with a shock to her bare knees on the bloody pavement. The creature bit her again, tearing her ear, and again on the back of her head. She tried to hit and struggle out of its grip, but instead fell forward as the blood-stained teeth and face struggled to catch hold of bare flesh.

  There were six or eight of the escaping mob that were struggling with more of the mindless biters. One man fought with both hands held by one of the creatures, pushing its face and jagged teeth away, while another grabbed him from behind and pulled him to the ground. Both sunk their teeth in, and started to tear at the shouting victim. Another man was shooting a pistol at an approaching figure, hitting it several times in the chest, before being overwhelmed by several more of the monsters. A man and woman were both kicking and fighting against snapping teeth on either side of the van they were attempting to retreat into, and both were dragged, screaming, back onto the surface of the parking lot. All of it was flashing before Kahn’s eyes so quickly that he remained frozen on all fours.

  Griffin fired a shot at the nearby monster gnawing on the exsanguinated corpse of the young woman, joining the others in the audience who had started to use their weapons on the infected figures. The bullet struck the eater on the top of the skull and it fell heavily on top of its prey. The three men turned away from the stage and started firing wildly at the closest of the walkers. Llewelyn was shouting something over the rapid reports of the weapons.

  A realization exploded into Kahn’s mind like a gunshot. He sprang backwards off the back edge of the wooden platform and landed, crouching, behind the low cover. Llewelyn and the others were so distracted by their defense against the flesh-eaters that they didn’t even notice or react to Kahn’s departure. He kept to a crouch and performed a low sprint to the edge of the building nearest the southern entrance to the store. He watched them, making sure they were still unaware of his escape, as cars peeled in all directions out of the lot. He left his concealed corner and made a wide dash toward his car in the middle of the row ahead. Llewelyn’s men seemed to be generally aiming and firing in the opposite direction, although Kahn still kept an eye on them.

  He approached the vehicle and slammed himself up against the driver’s door, crouching out of view. He could hear yells and screaming, frequently punctuated by gunfire.

  “Shit!” He yelled to himself. He didn’t have the keys. Griffin did, he thought, or one of them. He frantically tried the driver’s side door handle to no avail. He placed his hands over the window glare and looked in. He could see the equipment from the store, cases of water, and food he had loaded. He struck the window with an angry fist a
nd cursed again. He pivoted and creeped toward the rear of the car, thinking maybe the tailgate was not locked. As he reached the edge of the SUV and looked, two gory figures staggered in front of him. The two things, one man and one woman, were covered in blood, and Kahn shrunk back against the fender of the car in a panic. Neither saw him, they seemed to be moving quickly toward Llewelyn and his defenders, but Kahn still turned and ran down the row of cars farther away from his family’s food.

  He stopped at the closed tailgate of a large pickup truck, catching his breath, watching the shooters start to run the opposite direction of their escaped prisoner. The sudden sensation of a hand on his left arm caused him to jump and yell in fear. He spun toward the figure that had gripped him, ready to wrestle away the biting teeth of his new accoster. He slapped the hand away with his quick movement and prepared to strike the big, shadowy figure before stopping himself in frozen shock.

  “Kimble?” Kahn’s surprise was apparent in his quivering voice. “What are you--“

  “Quiet! Get in!” the big man interrupted. Sergeant Sole Kimble confidently moved his hulking frame toward the open front door of the truck and pulled himself into the driver’s seat. It was then that Kahn realized the red tailgate and familiar Texas flag decal covering the back window belonged to his neighbor’s vehicle. The engine fired into life as Kahn set aside his disbelief and scrambled into the passenger side.

  Two of the creatures slammed themselves into the front end of the truck before Kimble could shift it into gear. They both used to be men, Kahn thought, as they scratched and clawed at the red paint of the hood. The one on Kahn’s side had a head wound that freed a flap of scalp which bounced wildly around as it attacked the truck. It began to make its way toward the passenger side window, leaving bloody streaks on the truck as it shambled ahead. Kahn looked at Kimble, resigning their fate to the driver, and was surprised to see his neighbor loading a magazine into a large semi-automatic pistol.