With all the power she could muster, she drew a wide arch and swung. The katana connected with a thump into the creature’s neck. Blood splattered across the floor, and the zombie stumbled to the side, but it wasn’t a killing blow. Nancy pulled back and swung again, this time missing the neck and hitting the side of the face. More blood, and the head whipped to one side from the force, but the feet continued to shuffle forward.
The sight of her elderly neighbor, bleeding more than anyone had a right to bleed, with huge chunks missing from her neck and face - and yet still advancing - broke something in Nancy’s mind at that moment. She leaped forward and swung straight down, onto the skull. The sword almost got stuck, but she wrenched it free as Mrs Spears’ hands groped forward. Blood sprayed in every direction as Nancy slammed the sword down again, and again, and again, and again...
The creature hadn’t moved for a good two minutes before Nancy stopped hacking its body to pieces. There was blood everywhere, hunks and splatters of bone and brain covering the floor, but she kept swinging and swinging, until she realized that the high-pitched shriek in her ears was her own voice. Finally, reluctantly, she forced herself to stop.
Her throat was raw, her breath ragged, and her neighbor’s bodily fluids were splattered all over her bare torso.
Methodically, she cleaned off her sword and body with the remaining tatters of her top, quietly chose a sports bra and a black t-shirt from her dresser, pulled her hair up into a tight bun on top of her head, and snatched the key ring out of the pants on the edge of her bed. Then she left her apartment behind for the last time, to the steady thud...thud...thud... and scritch, scratch of the creatures trying to claw their way through her door.
Chapter Three
Terri-Lynn was weeping in a ball on the floor when Nancy returned to her apartment. When the sobbing woman saw her friend slipping in through the window she let out a cry of fear, thinking perhaps that Nancy had become one of them. Nancy ignored the cry and strode forward to yank her neighbor up off the floor. “Let’s go,” she said, and shoved the carving knife into Terri-Lynn’s trembling hand.
They moved very slowly down the fire escape, wary of attracting the attention of the crowd of creatures below. Terri-Lynn held the knife up near her chest and stayed very close to Nancy. Nancy reflected with an inward groan that the other woman would probably end up stabbing her in the back by accident. Her triumph over Mrs Spears had given her a little burst of confidence, and inversely a niggling sense of annoyance at her tear-streaked friend.
The building in which they lived didn’t have a parking garage, so the tenants fought for the good spots on the street. Nancy, due to her frequent closing shifts at the bar, didn’t get the good spots very often. She could see her car from here, but it was two buildings down and on the opposite side of the road. She swallowed a lump in her throat. When they made it down to the road they were going to have to run for it as fast as they could. Nancy wondered if Terri-Lynn had it in her to run. The woman barely seemed to be able to walk at the moment.
A half-ton truck suddenly came careening around the four-way stop three buildings up the road. The women watched with grimaces as it shrieked by at full tilt, zombies hanging off the back and sides of it. The driver was weaving back and forth in a desperate attempt to shake the ghouls. He drove clean over three more who were shambling along in the middle of the street; their bodies cracked and broke, and one had its head smashed under a tire. The headless body lay still, while the other two zombies struggled to follow the truck by pulling themselves along with whatever limbs still moved. Nancy watched them crawl along and had to swallow back the bile that threatened to rise up her throat again.
A particularly loud screech from its tires brought her attention back to the truck. It had skidded too quickly when trying to turn down the next road. She cringed as it flew nose first into a telephone pole, crumpling like a tin can. The driver, dazed only for a second, leaped out of the vehicle and ran for his life. Nancy couldn’t watch him anymore as he went around the street corner, but she did notice that all the ghouls on the street below her had taken notice of the live driver and had begun to shuffle off in his direction. In a few moments she’d have a clear run to her car while they were distracted.
“Time to go!” she hissed, turning to look at Terri-Lynn.
The other woman had fainted in a heap, almost landing face first on the blade of her knife. Nancy cursed as violently as she could while still keeping her voice low. “Wake up!” she growled. She kicked Terri-Lynn (a little bit maliciously) in the ribs. “I can’t possibly carry you to the car fast enough to avoid us being seen!”
She stared from her friend, to the car, and back again, and then kicked the woman once more for good measure. She wondered if she could make it with Terri-Lynn hoisted over her shoulder. She thought not. She considered running to the car and driving it back to the end of the fire escape, but she doubted she would be able to get out, get Terri-Lynn down, and get them both back into the car before the zombies made their way over to them. It was possible, she thought, but very, very risky. Just when she was surprising and disgusting herself with the idea of leaving Terri-Lynn behind all together, a beckoning sound from above made her jump out of her skin. She whipped around, katana in hand, and saw a boy of about sixteen peering out a window one floor up. He had a finger to his mouth to tell her to keep quiet. Nancy could tell that he hadn’t become a zombie, but she remained on guard none-the-less while he quietly climbed down to her.
“Are you trying to get to your car?” he whispered. His black hair was limp, and his dark eyes were hollow.
Nancy nodded.
“Take me with you?” he begged. “My family, they... I’ve been holed up in my bedroom, and I-” He couldn’t seem to get the words out.
Nancy put a hand on his shoulder. She motioned toward Terri-Lynn. “Can you help me? Can you wait here and help me get her into the car when I bring it over?”
The kid nodded enthusiastically. “Whatever you say,” he promised. “Just please, get me out of this place.”
Nancy nodded back and reassessed the situation. The zombies had continued to shamble off in the direction the man had run, and most of them were now past Nancy’s car. For a minute she considered simply waiting until they wandered out of sight, but with a heavy heart she saw that there were more already wandering this way from the other end of the road, and yet more appearing from alleyways, and through broken doors and windows in the surrounding buildings. They could wait here for ages, hoping that all of the creatures would wander away from the general area, but in the meantime there were still plenty of them in the apartments behind them who would likely, eventually, discover the three runaways on the fire escape.
Nancy took a deep breath and turned to the kid. “I’m Nancy. What’s your name?” she asked.
“Greg,” he replied.
Nancy nodded, plucked the carving knife out of Terri-Lynn’s limp fingers, and handed it to Greg. He accepted it graciously and gripped the handle with pale fingers.
“First, we need a bed sheet or two,” she told him. “Whatever you’ve got in your bedroom. Can you do that for me?”
Greg looked pained at the thought of returning to his room (Nancy wondered if his undead family was pounding away at his door as they spoke), but he nodded and began to climb back up to his window. While he was gone, Nancy climbed down a little ways and examined the fire escape ladder. It was at least a ten- or eleven-foot drop from the bottom of it as it stood now, but lowering the rusty extension would likely alert the zombies. If she lowered herself all the way to the bottom and hung on the last rung, it would only be about a five foot drop from the soles of her feet. Still enough to crack an ankle, but it was the best she thought she could do without drawing attention to herself.
Greg returned in short order with an arm load of dark blue and white sheets. Nancy tested their strength by pulling on them, and then began tying the corners together to make a long rope. When she had the length of
three sheets, she wrapped one end around Terri-Lynn’s chest, securing it as tight as she dared under her arms. The other end she handed to Greg.
“Okay, this is what we’re going to do,” Nancy whispered. “I’m going to go down there and try to make it to the car without being noticed. When I start it up they’re probably going to hear it and turn to come at me, so we’ve got to be quick. I’m going to drive over here as fast as I can, and you’re going to lower Terri-Lynn down to me. Don’t worry about being gentle. We’ve gotta be quick, and she’s better off hurt than left behind.”
Greg nodded. His face was deadly serious.
“Are you ready?” Nancy asked.
“I’m not getting any less terrified, so yeah, I suppose so,” was Greg’s response.
Fear and doubt were slithering in with every passing second, so Nancy placed her katana down and started to shimmy down the fire escape ladder. When she reached the last rung she took a deep breath. She hoped she had enough upper body strength to hang from just her arms and make it down the last few rungs. She climbed her hands down as far as she could comfortably go before taking her feet off the bottom rung and allowing them to drop.
The pain was excruciating. Nancy immediately made a mental note to either lose weight or gain muscle strength when this was all over. Possibly both.
It was agonizing, but eventually, with her arms screaming, she reached the bottom of the ladder with her hands, let herself drop, and braced for impact. Her knees cried out in protest and she almost fell flat on her face, but it was a quiet drop. She gave herself a handful of seconds to recover and then motioned for Greg to toss her sword down to her. There was a brief moment, while the sword was hanging in mid-air, that they both realized the stupidity of this action, but with a panicked motion that almost got her skewered on her own weapon, Nancy was able to snatch the hilt out of the air before the blade clanged down onto the bare pavement. A bead of sweat ran down her brow. She surveyed the area. No one seemed to have noticed her yet. Good.
Most of the zombies were still wandering off in the direction of the fated driver. Some, however, seemed to have lost interest and were wandering in random directions. Yet more were crawling their way toward Nancy’s position from the other end of the street. Her instinct was to be stealthy, but with so many eyes in so many directions, she knew it wouldn’t do much good. She hid behind one car, and then another, before changing her mind and deciding that speed was the best course of action. With a quick glance in each direction to make sure there were no zombies in her immediate area, she took off at a run, making sure to keep her footfalls as quiet as possible.
All seemed to be going strangely well until Nancy crouched down next to her car and pulled out her key ring. As she fumbled for the black-topped Hyundai key, a horrible moan made her heart leap into her throat. From the fire escape Greg shouted a warning, and then clapped his hands over his mouth as the entire street turned and noticed living prey.
Nancy panicked. The moan had come from a firefighter that had been half crushed by a car and was crawling toward her with his bloody, broken legs trailing behind in stringy clumps. Like a child furiously swatting at a bee around her head, Nancy slashed her katana at the creature half a dozen times with a shriek in her throat. When she didn’t manage to kill it immediately, she instead turned and jammed the car key into the door lock (grinding away three long strips of paint in her panic), and threw herself into the vehicle. From the windshield she could see dozens of enemies hobbling toward her and she almost lost her nerve. She shoved the key at the ignition, missed several times, and bit her lip so hard that it began to bleed. As panic threatened to take her over, she threw the katana onto the passenger seat, grabbed her right wrist with her left hand, and forced herself to carefully guide the key in and turn it. The engine started, mercifully, sounding to her mind like a choir of angels.
There was no more time to think. The gear shift went into drive and the tires screeched across the pavement toward the fire escape. Nancy lost the passenger side mirror and a decent amount of paint on another car that had been abandoned in the middle of the lane. She squealed to a stop beneath the ladder, the smell of burned rubber floating up around her, and leaped out of the car.
“Hurry!” she screamed.
Greg, though he looked like he was going to burst into tears, already had Terri-Lynn over the side of the fire escape. When the limp woman’s feet reached Nancy’s outstretched arms she screamed, “Just drop her!” Greg obliged, and Nancy collapsed under her neighbor’s weight. A few small rocks from the sidewalk drove up into her elbows, but she hardly registered the pain. She flew to her feet, ripped open the back door of the car, and struggled to shove Terri-Lynn in. Greg decided to forgo the ladder all together and made a leap of faith onto the roof of Nancy’s car. The bang scared her half to death.
“Look out!” the teenager screamed suddenly.
Nancy dropped Terri-Lynn’s legs and whirled around. Three zombies had appeared from the alleyway and the closest one was already reaching for her head. She froze in her panic. Her weapon was only a few feet away, but she’d never maneuver it out of the car in time.
BANG! The zombie’s head burst in a spray of blood and Nancy shrieked. The now-headless body dropped and the two other creatures turned to the source of the noise that had killed their companion. Nancy couldn’t help but automatically look as well, and found an older man, his white hair peeking out through a black ball cap, aiming a particularly large and expensive-looking hunting rifle at the scene.
“In the car, sweetie!” he commanded, and caught the second zombie right through the eye.
Nancy didn’t waste time thinking. She turned and shoved Terri-Lynn’s legs as hard as she could until she was able to slam the door. “Greg!” she shouted. “In the back!” Recovering, for a moment, from the shock and fear, he did as he was told. He hopped off the car and into the back seat, shoving Terri-Lynn’s head out of the way as he went.
Nancy leaped into the driver’s side and turned to look for the old man. He had disposed of the third zombie and was now aiming at the next nearest ones coming down the street toward them. “Get in!” Nancy screamed.
He fired off another two shots, then lowered his rifle and moved quickly to the passenger side seat of the car. With a move that could have easily destroyed her transmission, Nancy reversed just far enough to aim the car back at the road before forcing the vehicle into drive and slamming on the gas. She took out two more zombies against her front bumper as she sped off.
“What’s your name, hon?”
Nancy’s knuckles were turning white from the death grip she was keeping on the steering wheel. She sideswiped another zombie and felt a little more blood drain from her face. “Nancy,” she replied through gritted teeth. “Nancy King.”
The older man turned to the back seat. “And you, son?” he asked.
“Greg Torrence, sir,” the boy answered, respectful even though he was shaking like a leaf.
“The dozer is Terri-Lynn,” Nancy added after a moment. “She fainted.”
The older man nodded. “I’m Marshall,” he offered.
“Thanks for your help, Marshall,” Nancy replied. She gripped the steering wheel a little harder as the car struck a younger-looking zombie wearing a private school uniform.
Marshall nodded, closed his eyes for a moment, and seemed to be thinking about something. After a few seconds he opened them again and asked, “Where are we headed?”
For a few minutes Nancy didn’t answer. She was staring, wide-eyed, at the hundreds of zombies roaming the streets as she screeched past them. Her apartment was in a fairly quiet part of the city, but now that they were moving through a busier area it seemed that they were driving through a veritable sea of the undead. She struggled to keep calm as she drove through them, winding this way and that to avoid abandoned cars and fires in the street. She kept glancing up at the windows in the buildings around them, wondering where the rest of the survivors were, why it didn’t seem
like anyone was fighting back. Eventually she forced herself to reply to Marshall’s question: “The bar where I work. It’s a big, strong brick building. There wouldn’t have been anyone there when everything went to hell, so we should be able to hide out for a while.”
Marshall nodded and said nothing, but Nancy could tell that he was contemplating all the problems with her plan. For one, there were zombies everywhere. Even if they found their way into the bar, how long could their little rag-tag group last camped out in there? There was some food, and running water (for now), but little else. Eventually they would need supplies, weapons.
Nancy realized that she was expecting this nightmare to last, and she tried to shut off that part of her brain. No... No, the military would do something, surely? This mess would be cleared up. They just need to stay alive for a little while.
Stay human... her mind added.
“Do you think this is happening all over?” Greg piped up from the back seat. His voice was small, frightened.
Marshall nodded without hesitation. “Look around,” he told the boy. “Do you see the army? Do you see the cavalry swooping in to save us? No... We’ve seen no sign of any kind of military assistance, which can only mean that the cavalry is tied up elsewhere. No, if they’re not here dealing with this right now, then they must be dealing with it somewhere, maybe everywhere, else.”
Nancy’s throat felt like sandpaper. Well, there goes that idea, she thought.
At one traffic light there had been an enormous collision between at least six vehicles. The mess was still smoldering, blocking the way through, and several zombies with smashed bodies were trying to weasel their way out of the wreckage. With a gag crawling up her throat Nancy quickly pushed the car into reverse and took off for a different side street.
“Excuse me, Nancy?” Greg spoke through his hands as he covered his eyes unashamedly. “How are we going to get into the bar without them seeing us and following us to the entrance? I mean, they don’t seem particularly smart, but once they see you they do tend to try and follow...” It was clear from the sound of his voice that he spoke from experience.
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