Married with Zombies: Book 1 of Living with the Dead

by Jesse Petersen

  I shrugged. “That boat of a car certainly has enough space for it. Why not?”

  He glanced around. “We haven’t seen any activity here, human or infected. Do you want to split up?”

  I tensed. We hadn’t done that since the outbreak started. I guess my face must have showed my feelings because he reached out and grabbed my hands.

  “Just to save time, Sarah. We still need to hit a grocery and then get on the road.”

  Of course, his logic made perfect sense so I nodded. “You take the cart.”

  He smiled as he moved off in one direction through the store. I headed in the other, checking through the aisles as I went.

  In the golf section I got a big, heavy driver and tucked it under my arm. Then a second baseball bat from the sport section. The one David had at present was made from ultra-light aluminum, but this one was solid wood. When I tapped it against my palm it made a satisfying thud that I could almost imagine hearing when dealing with a zombie’s rotting head.

  I moved back toward the front of the store. At the cash registers there was a soda cooler and some power bars and other snacks. I grabbed some bags and loaded up with a bunch of each. Just as I was finishing up, I heard a sound behind me. I turned, expecting to find Dave waiting for me with our cart.

  There was a person behind me, but I’m afraid it wasn’t my husband. To my surprise, a pale-faced girl zombie stood in front of me. She was wearing a Bingo’s nametag that read CINDY. Or at least it would have if there wasn’t blood splattered across most of it.

  Oh yeah, and she was missing an arm.

  “Shit!” I yelped, dropping everything in my arms as she lunged toward me with a grunt and a whine.

  She caught me before I could get any one of my many weapons in hand and we staggered toward the cash register together. I fell across the countertop, my hip hitting the edge with what I knew was bruising force.

  Cindy the Zombie gnashed her teeth at me and I kicked upward, hitting her squarely between the legs. Unfortunately, her being a girl and all, the action didn’t faze her. She only tilted her head at me and growled louder.

  “David!” I screamed as I shoved her back with all my might, which wasn’t much from the odd angle I was lying at.

  Luckily for me though, because she didn’t have an arm, she was off-balance already and she fell off of me and slid across the linoleum floor with a groan of whatever was the emotionless version of disappointment. But she moved right back for me, crawling across the floor with her jaws snapping.

  In the distance, I saw Dave maneuvering his cart toward me. He had to lean on it for support, but he was making pretty good time considering his bum leg. Still, he wasn’t going to make it before the girl hit me again, so I bolted, jumping behind the cashier desk like it was a bunker in a World War II simulation game.

  The zombie lunged behind me and ended up lying across the counter making little biting faces at me as she pushed herself up on her tiptoes and slid as close as she could in my direction.

  I don’t know what came over me, really. I guess it was instinct… or maybe the faint, but wholly unpleasant memory of my days working in retail when I wished I could kill snotty holiday shoppers like I now killed zombies. Either way, I hit the cash out button on the old cash register and the drawer flew open.

  It smacked Zombie Cindy right in the temple, breaking her rotting flesh and sending a light spray of tissue and blood across the countertop. She roared her pain as she glanced up at me with annoyance on her face.

  Yup, that was just as satisfying as I’d always thought it would be during all those years ringing up ill-tempered shoppers.

  I didn’t wait for her to recover from the blow. There was a fixture rod sitting behind the counter and I grabbed the light metal with both hands.

  “Sorry, Cindy,” I muttered as I raised it over my head. “This is the cash-only lane. We don’t accept gnashing teeth as credit.”

  I slammed the fixture down, smacking the confused and angry zombie right at the base of her skull. She whimpered, though her movements slowed and I smashed it down a few more times until she twitched and then lay still.

  Just as I finished, Dave got to the front of the store. He slowed his pace as I dropped the bloody rod and came out from behind the counter. I wiped my hands off on my shirt and then looked down at myself.

  Once again, I was covered in blood and brains and all kinds of disgusting mung that I don’t even want to talk about. With a grunt, I peeled off my t-shirt and turned it inside out to wipe off my body as best I could.

  Grabbing for the nearest rack, I replaced it with a new “Just Do It” t-shirt from the Nike rack and then gathered all the items I had been forced to drop in the struggle. Oddly, I was mostly irritated that the cold sodas were probably all shaken up now and we’d have to be careful opening them.

  Dave remained silent the entire time, just watching me as I put myself back together.

  “Sarah, are you okay?” he finally asked, his tone wary.

  Of course it’s not every day you get to watch your spouse beat the shit out of a zombie. Well, except by then I guess it was.

  I shrugged as I stepped over the dead zombie and headed for the door.

  “I think Dr. Kelly was right after all,” I said as I dropped the items I’d grabbed into his cart and wedged the double doors open again. “You don’t have to spend money to have a good time together. Look how much fun we had today and we haven’t spent a dime.”

  Dave shook his head. “Well, technically, I think that’s because we’re looting.”

  “Potato/Potahto,” I laughed as we moved into the parking lot. “Whatever it is, it’s free.”

  Do special things for each other. Antibiotics are the gift that keeps giving.

  The grocery store just across the way from Bingo’s had a pharmacy, so we drove over what would have once been a main thoroughfare you never would have dared to cross without a light. But I can tell you what: There was going to be no splitting up this time as we entered the building.

  It wasn’t one of the big chain stores with their nice aisles and fancy name brand products. It had an old, “neighborhood store” feel to it that was kind of nice.

  Unfortunately, it also meant it had been pretty well cleaned out when the infection started to break. The aisles were strewn with leftover food that had been cleared from the shelves in the melee of three days before. But I wasn’t as worried about food, honestly. We had more pressing matters to deal with.

  “There’s the pharmacy,” I said as I motioned toward the back of the store. Dave pushed a cart again as we made our way toward the glass-encased area in the back.

  At first I felt pretty good about where we were. It was quiet, the lights and refrigerators were still running, and aside from the messy state of the food aisles, there wasn’t much sign of infestation.

  That was, at least, until the swinging doors in the back opened and from them fell a group of five zombies. Three of them were dressed in store uniforms and two had clearly once been customers. One was a middle-aged woman with curlers still in her hair; another was dressed up like she’d been on her way to or home from an office job, probably in some kind of management position if her tailored appearance (aside from the greyness and blood and sludge drooling, of course) was any indication.

  “Man,” I whined as I hopped behind the pharmacy counter and drew out a shotgun. “We just can’t catch a break.”

  I fired the first shot as they started to move toward us and dropped Middle Management Zombie. The spray of the pellets caught Curler Zombie, too, and she flinched as her arm flopped from the impact. Dave braced himself on the end cap of a shelf and fired two shots in rapid succession, making quick work of the Curler Zombie I had winged and one of the store workers. I finished off the other two and reloaded before I turned into the back of the pharmacy.

  “I’ll just be a minute,” I promised and hoped I’d be right.

  There were short aisles behind the glass with drugs that seem
ed to be organized by what they treated so I started from the front and moved back.

  I was disappointed that most of the painkillers had already been wiped out when the looting started a couple of days before. I guess the druggies and the people who were afraid of facing what was happening had taken advantage. But there were still some anti-inflammatories left behind so I grabbed those while Dave cleared out the supply of Tylenol on the other side of the glass. It would be better than nothing in a pinch.

  I turned down the final aisle and came to a sudden stop. There on the floor were two bodies that I approached with caution. I nudged the first one with my foot, but it didn’t move. It was actually a dead person, not a zombie.

  I tilted my head to look closer. She was a woman, probably about my age, with a white lab coat and her hair pulled back in a bun. Her nametag said ANGELICA. She almost looked like she was just taking a rest, except that all around her mouth was a foamy substance and clutched in her hand was a big bottle of the powerful painkiller Oxycontin.

  She must have been trapped back here when the zombies came in. Behind the glass she would have been able to see everything play out. And I guess she’d figured it was better not to let it happen to her.

  With a sigh, I moved to the next body. But as I neared it, it jolted and I braced myself for a zombie encounter as it flipped over to face me. This one was the male pharmacist, probably a good twenty years older than the other girl. He had thinning grey hair that matched his skin and a friendly face, even though it was now twisted with a desire to crush me and eat my bones.

  I drew back with a gasp I couldn’t have kept to myself no matter how much you paid me. While the younger woman had taken her own life, it seemed like this man had decided to fight. And he’d lost because he was missing his legs. He scooted toward me on his belly, hissing and biting the air as he dragged himself through the pool of his own blood and tissue.

  My empty stomach turned. I hoped he had already been a zombie when he sustained those injuries. The infected didn’t seem to feel pain the way we did. It obviously irritated them when they were hurt, but they could soldier on without an arm or a leg.

  “Sorry, buddy,” I murmured as I swung my shotgun butt and smashed the side of his head in. He sighed, almost in relief, as his red pupils faded to lifeless black.

  “What’s up back there?” Dave asked and I realized I’d been standing out of his line of sight for a long time.

  I grabbed a few more items, including some instant ice packs, and came out to where he could see me.

  “Nothing,” I said as I vaulted over the counter. I kept trying to put the image of the legless creature out of my mind. “Just taking care of an issue and I figured it didn’t require wasting shells.”

  “Okay,” Dave responded slowly, watching me closely as he took the armfuls of items I’d picked up and put them into the cart.

  “Is that it?” I asked with false brightness as I looked around us.

  He nodded. “I grabbed more nonperishables from the aisles close by. There’s not much left here, I don’t think, but if you want to we could look for more.”

  I stared at our cart, half full of items. I didn’t want to stay here. I didn’t want to have to keep finding zombies and bodies and fight. I was tired and I just wanted it all to stop. Of course, I knew it wasn’t possible, but I shook my head like maybe it could be if we just left the store.

  “If we make it to Longview tonight we can figure out the supply situation there,” I said. “Knowing your sister, she has a bunker filled with homemade preserves that we can survive in for years.”

  Dave smiled. “See, she could come in handy.”

  I laughed softly. “At last. And even if we don’t get there tonight, we’ll have to stop somewhere anyway. Maybe we’ll find someplace that hasn’t been touched by…”

  I trailed off and waved my hand at the carnage all around us.

  He didn’t answer, not that I blamed him. At this point, and after everything we’d seen and heard and done, I think we were pretty well aware that this terror had spread like crazy and there wasn’t much of a safe place anymore, especially in the Western part of the United States. But I think we were still reluctant to say it out loud. Like it would jinx us or something if we admitted it.

  “Then let’s get back on the highway,” he said, but his voice had the same ring of false cheer that mine had had earlier.

  I led the way with him pushing the cart behind me. Just as we reached the front registers, another one of the infected popped up from behind the bigger “guest services” desk at the front. Without missing a beat, David shot him and he fell back down as if he’d never even existed.

  Out in the parking lot, we loaded up the car as fast as we could, rearranging things so that we could get to them without being forced to stop.

  As I pulled out, Dave put an ice pack on his leg and downed four Tylenol and a couple of the anti-inflammatories, then he handed me the carton of orange juice he’d found in a front cooler on our way out of the store.

  While we maneuvered through the streets toward the highway with the GPS jabbering in our ears about which turn to take, we had a breakfast of stale muffins, juice, and ultra-fizzy Diet Coke (hey, I need my morning caffeine).

  And as we rolled back up onto the congested road, I don’t know what he was thinking, but the mantra that kept running through my head was, “Here we go again.”

  Men are from Mars.… Zombies are from Hell.

  About fifteen miles past Sea-Tac airport the highway slowly… and rather eerily cleared up. It was as if this was as far as anyone had managed to make it and now we were pioneers on the next leg of our journey.

  As we stopped having to weave within traffic, I glanced at Dave. His mouth was a thin line that expressed his worry as well as my own thoughts did.

  “We’re close to Tacoma,” he murmured.

  I nodded. “There should still be tons of traffic.”

  Honestly, the roads around here were pretty much bad until you got past Olympia and entered into full-blown rolling hills of bucolic farm country.

  He reached out and turned on the old car’s radio. I should also mention it had an eight track. Yes, that’s how awesome our car was. But the radio was currently on FM stations and Dave turned the dial back and forth, looking for any kind of signal. Nothingness greeted us.

  My heart was pounding. This was the first time our attempts at finding a station had failed. Did that mean they were all gone?

  “Try AM,” I whispered, my voice shaking.

  Without a word, he pressed the button that switched the feed and started rolling through AM stations.

  Empty air and static were all we found. He wound the dial all the way to the bottom, then back to the top.

  “Wait,” I cried, “Was that a voice?”

  He turned back just a little and sure enough, faint and clouded by static, was the voice of a young woman.

  “The government might try to shut us up, but they can’t shut us down,” she said, her voice shaky and exhausted. “We will talk about the spread of the infection. We will tell you what we’re seeing whether they like it or not.”

  I stiffened. “Did she just say the government was trying to shut her up?”

  I guess I was still pretty innocent at that point. I figured that the government, our government, would be trying to figure out a way to share information, to save people who were left, not hush this disaster up.

  “I’d guess it’s a way to quell panic,” Dave offered as he jacked the volume up so we could hear better over the bad reception.

  “Here in…”

  Her voice cut out so I couldn’t hear where she was broadcasting from. It couldn’t be far, though, the signal wasn’t strong enough.

  “… there are far more infected now than survivors. We have seen government tanks rolling through the streets. They’ve knocked down buildings without even checking for survivors inside. They have bombed city blocks and shot people who tried to flag them down
for help.”

  My hand came up to cover my mouth, so it was good we were on open road now.

  “Christ,” I breathed.

  “They’re shutting down the power in…”

  Again her voice crackled and I was frustrated in my attempts to figure out where she was.

  “… and we’re now running on a generator until it runs out of power… or they find us. The zombies or the soldiers. Please, spread the word. Don’t listen to the reports that the outbreak is over and being contained. It isn’t. And if you’re hearing this from outside Portland… please find a way to tell others. Before it’s too late.”

  The voice died and Dave began to roll the dial frantically as he tried to find her again, but she was gone.

  “Portland,” I breathed. “Portland? She had to be in Oregon.”

  He nodded as he snapped the radio off with a sigh of frustration. “She has to be. It’s the only Portland close enough to have a signal. With a big enough transistor and enough power, she could reach us. Especially with all the other station chatter gone.”

  He rested his head back on the seat and his fists clenched at his sides. Tears stung my eyes and I had to focus to stay on the road. For the first time since all this began, I was really ready to lose it.

  Longview was just at the Washington/Oregon border. About an hour north of Portland.

  I sucked in a breath. “But if it’s in Portland… if it’s so bad in Portland that they’re fire bombing the city, that means it’s spread past Longview.”

  He nodded.

  “It wouldn’t skip a town, David,” I sobbed. “Lisa was right. There isn’t a Longview left.”

  “Pull over,” he said softly.

  “I can’t, I have to —”

  He touched my arm, his fingers gentle and soothing. “Pull over.”

  Slowly, I made it to the side of the road, putting the passenger wheels right on the shoulder, not that there was anyone else out there to hit me. Apparently the world that we knew of was officially gone.