Trepidation

by Chrissy Peebles

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly. I shined my flashlight around through the pitch dark, and everything seemed to be okay, but I had to be sure. I started walking through the aisles with my gun drawn. When I noticed another door way off to the side, I pointed my flashlight down at the floor.

  Kate gasped.

  There were muddy, wet, snowy footprints leading from the basement of the shop. My stomach lurched when I realized we had more ominous company than a stray cat. I wanted to know who or what was in there with us. There was no way we could leave in that blizzard, and we’d be forced to stay the night, so I had to track down our uninvited guest and put it out of its rotting misery if it was a zombie.

  CRASH!

  Chapter 30

  I instinctively pointed my gun in the direction of the ominous noise. As I inched forward into the next room, I held my breath. I heard another loud crash and hurried straight toward it. When I turned down the aisle where the music boxes were kept, I found myself looking into the eyes of a killer. The zombie was pretty emaciated, and I could see its ribs through its black skin. A low, throaty, growl rose from its throat. It lumbered straight toward me, and I put a bullet straight in its brain. It crashed backward, knocking a dozen music boxes to the floor and shattering them in an eerie melody of mixed-up tunes.

  Kate clutched her chest. “We’ve gotta get that thing out of here, or I’ll never be able to sleep.”

  Together, we dragged the zombie outside and across the street. The wind whipped across our faces, and the bitter cold bit into my skin. When I glanced up, I saw something through the blowing snow: a figure with long, flowing black hair. I aimed my gun, but just as I was about to shoot, I noticed its glowing green eyes. I gasped, totally caught off guard. Jackie? “Look!” I said.

  “It’s a zombie,” she retorted.

  “But she’s backing away.”

  “Maybe it’s a hybrid.”

  The figure took off to the back of the house across the street, which was odd, because it wasn’t like zombies to run away from a fresh meal. I thought it might be another survivor, and I had to see who it was. I started to run after her, but Kate pulled my arm.

  “You wanna get yourself killed, Dean!?” she shouted over the howling wind.

  I broke free and raced across the street and to the back yard. I spun in a slow circle. It was hard to see through the wall of snow, and my feet slipped and slid with every step. Then I saw those glowing eyes. “Jackie?” I said in stunned amazement.

  The figure darted off into the white blanket of snow, and I anxiously followed. At that point, I knew I wasn’t pursuing a zombie, because it had green eyes just like Val’s and Asia’s.

  When a snow-covered zombie stumbled in my path and howled at me, I whipped out my handgun and pulled the trigger. A bullet hurtled through the air and found its mark right between the eyes of the rotter. Dark blood leaked from the hole in its head.

  Another one approached. A huge gouge was ripped out of its cheek, as if something had bitten into it like an apple. I jumped out of its dangerous grasp as it reached for me, then aimed my gun and squeezed the trigger steadily. Its lifeless body crashed at my feet.

  Four more gnashed their teeth, making low, raspy sounds as they shambled toward me through the blizzard. Swallowing hard, I aimed at the shadowy figures looming ahead. As they came into the view, I unloaded all my bullets into them. I blinked as blood sprayed.

  A zombie hissed behind me, and Kate shined her flashlight on it, as I whipped around, shattering its leg with my boot. The rotter lunged, and I smashed the butt of my gun into its head. It tumbled back into a thick snowdrift.

  Kate raced over and shot it, then grabbed my arm. “Are you crazy?”

  “I thought I saw Jackie.”

  “So you’re chasing ghosts now?”

  “No! Her eyes...they were glowing and green!”

  “It could be a survivor from Kingsville,” she said. “I loved Jackie, too, Dean, but tracing out here in a zombie-infested blizzard is plain stupid.”

  “Didn’t you see her eyes?”

  “It looked like a zombie to me, but...”

  I didn’t expect her to believe me, because I didn’t even believe it myself. It could have been a survivor from Kingsville, or it might have just been my imagination playing tricks on me. I wasn’t sure what to make of it, but I couldn’t forget those glowing eyes. “Let’s get back inside,” I said. “I’m freezing.”

  We cut through the yard and hurried back inside, then slammed the door behind us.

  “I swear I’m losing my mind,” I said, “but that girl looked exactly like Jackie, with long, dark hair and green eyes and everything. I coulda sworn it was her.”

  “You’re always thinking about her, Dean, so it’s natural that your mind would jump to that conclusion. None of us want to face the fact that she’s really gone.”

  “I don’t wanna talk about it,” I said. “I’m just glad that zombie is outta of the house.”

  “Yeah, that thing nearly gave me a heart attack.”

  “Me too. We’d better find out how it got in.”

  I walked down the creaky stairs, into the ice-cold basement. Kate struggled forward behind me, sucking in quick breaths. My heart raced with every descending step. I ducked under sticky cobwebs that fluttered above my head. I coughed, gagged, and coughed again. The mildew was unbearable, and I tried to take in shallow breaths. My footsteps seemed so loud and heavy, even though I was trying to tread lightly.

  I swung my flashlight around through the darkness and didn’t see anything. My gaze darted all around, and I paid careful attention to every detail of my surroundings, from the wobbly stairs to the cracked walls. When I heard a scratching sound, fear sent my heart racing. Anything could be lurking in that dark, musty basement, and something was clearly moving in the darkness. I looked at Kate. “Hear that?” I whispered.

  She opened her mouth, but no words came out.

  “Kate?” I whispered.

  She let out a trembling breath. “Faintly.”

  “What is it?”

  “I have no idea.”

  The image of a herd of zombies devouring me filled my mind. The terror I was feeling was a hundred times worse than any horror film could ever accomplish in a scary basement seen.

  Kate flashed her beam into the dark corners. “I don’t like it down here. Let’s go back upstairs.”

  “We can’t. We’ve gotta figure out how that zombie got in and seal it off. It was clear the first time when we checked it.”

  She pointed a trembling finger. “Look! There’s another room. Not that I want to, but we better check it out.”

  “Yeah. C’mon.”

  She inched forward.

  When the floor began to move, I gasped. I flashed my light downward and realized I was stepping on hundreds of cockroaches. I jumped back as they scattered at a startling speed at the sight of our flashlight beams.

  “Bugs! Gross! I hate bugs!” Kate squealed. “Let’s go back.”

  “Not until we deem this basement clear and find how that zombie got inside.”

  “I just wanna get outta here, Dean,” she begged. “This place is infested. They’re even swarming the walls.”

  I suddenly felt a bunch of squirming legs on my head, and I quickly wiped the cockroach off. “So let’s just hurry up and get this done.”

  She frantically brushed off her clothes. “I think I’m gonna be sick.”

  “Better roaches than zombies,” I retorted.

  “Speak for yourself.”

  My heart had never beaten so fast before, and the floor crunched with every step I took, like I was stepping on living saltines. The wavering flashlight beams cast eerie shadows on the squirming walls. Uncontrollable terror filled me as I experienced flashbacks of the lab. Walking through the dark, into the unknown, brought back all sorts of horrifying memories that were still all too fresh in my mind. My stomach clenched as I led the way.

  When a shadow emerged, much
larger than a cockroach, my labored breathing intensified. I aimed my gun and focused. The thing wasn’t human; I could tell that much for sure. I fired, and the creature fell back with a loud thud.

  Kate ran over to it and fired a slug into its brain.

  As I shined my light around, I realized we were surrounded by dozens of them.

  “Mannequins!” Kate said, letting out a deep breath.

  I glanced around at the plastic people surrounding us. “That’s the second time I’ve done that.”

  “Yeah, I remember when you took out the CPR dummy at the nursing home.”

  “It’s dark, and these things have faces, and my adrenaline’s already pumping a million miles an hour. You can’t blame me for freaking out.”

  “Yeah, tell me about it.” She peered around her, shivering. “These things are downright creepy.”

  Howling in hunger, a zombie burst out from behind a group of mannequins. Alarm jolted through me as it reached out with skeletal hands and snapping, jagged teeth. It pulled my arm toward its open, waiting mouth. Before it got the chance to sink its teeth into fresh meat, I fired at its rotting brain. After a shower of oozing gore, it stopped thrashing and hit the cold, hard concrete. I wiped my face off with my sleeve and almost puked as dozens of cockroaches crawled out of its mouth.

  “That’s it. I’m gonna throw up!” Kate shouted. “For every one we see, there’re a hundred more hiding in the walls.”

  “How many heart attacks can a person have in one day?” I asked, the floor crunching grotesquely with every step I took.

  “I guess three. The very first zombie, the mannequin, and the freaking roach motel!”

  I glanced around. “Zombies are getting in somehow.”

  “Here!” Kate said, pointing to a drainpipe on the far side of the room.

  “Let’s secure it.”

  We sealed off the open pipe, then did another sweep of the house. When we deemed the basement clear and properly blockaded, we headed upstairs and huddled together in the covers.

  “Do you think they’ll come up here?” Kate asked.

  “No more zombies are paying us a visit tonight. This little shop of horrors is closed.”

  “I’m talking about the roaches.”

  “Kate, I know it sucks, but it’s not the end of the world.”

  “I can’t sleep right now, so I’ll take first watch,” Kate said. “Get some sleep. I’ll wake you up for your shift.”

  I nodded. I didn’t like bugs any more than she did, but they were the last thing on my mind. I was more worried about zombies and Z’s gang. I finally drifted off to sleep. I’m not sure how long I slept before I was jolted awake by Kate.

  “Dean!” she said. “Wake up!”

  Chapter 31

  “I’m awake,” I said groggily, not ready for the fourth heart attack in one night.

  “Someone broke in!”

  Sleepily, I scrambled to my feet and reached for my rifle.

  Kate pointed her gun at the door.

  I wasn’t sure how the zombies could have broken in through the drainpipe, since we’d secured it really well, so I feared we were going to have to face an adversary of the more intelligent variety. The thought terrified me. Z’s army or not, shooting at a human being was always much harder than making Swiss cheese out of a dead corpse, and I didn’t want to kill anyone. I had flashbacks of Kingsville and that awful night when I’d taken a man’s life in self-defense, and a droplet of sweat rolled down my face.

  My fingers wrapped around the doorknob, and I cautiously opened it, with my heart beating a million miles a minute. I walked down the corridor, the floorboards creaking with every step I took. I turned the corner to the stairs, and a hooded man aimed a gun at me. Terror gripped me, and I gasped.

  Was it a hybrid? Did Charlie send it after me like some kind of hit man? Or was it a gang member?

  Just as I started to pull the trigger to wound him in the shoulder so I could get away, he yelled, “Dean, are you crazy? Put that gun down, man!”

  Gasping, I swung the flashlight at him. “Lucas?”

  Kate ran into his arms and hugged him, an embrace that seemed to last a little too long. When Lucas cupped her face, he was wearing a strange expression I’d never seen on his face before.

  “I was worried sick when you guys didn’t come back,” Lucas said, staring at me. “I had no idea you were an antiquing kinda guy, Dean.”

  “We got snowed in,” I said.

  “Well, let’s get you home. The others are outside and downstairs.”

  I was more than happy to leave our own personal ice tomb. Our friends made quick work of digging our truck out, and we made the slow trek home through the snow.

  Back at the apartment, Kate and I slept in front of the fire, trying to thaw out from our very unpleasant stay in that frozen, bug-infested nightmare.

  ***

  When morning came, the apartment was freezing. I put on jeans and a sweatshirt and walked into the living room. Everybody was gone except Lucas, who was putting wood on the fire. “It’s freezing,” I said.

  “Tell me about it. After we got back last night, I worked the nightshift, and I’m still wound up. I’m gonna grab something to eat, warm up, then catch some Z’s.”

  I dug through the cupboard and opened two cans of tuna, one for me and one for Lucas.

  He grabbed a spoon and dug right in. “Thanks, Dean.”

  “Not a problem. I mean, you did save my butt last night, getting us out of that shop and home through that snowstorm.”

  “About that...”

  I cocked a brow. “Great. I feel a lecture coming on.”

  “Dean...”

  “What?” I asked. “How did you expect me to get home in that mess? We were trapped, and—”

  “That’s not it.”

  “Then what is it? I’m getting a little tired of you and Nick and even Val treating me like a kid. I’m sick of—”

  “Hey! Calm down, would ya? It’s just...well, you left Kate alone last night to go on a ghost hunt, man.”

  I huffed. “She told you that?”

  He sat down and propped up his feet on the coffee table. “Yeah.”

  “I made a mistake. It won’t happen again.”

  “She might’ve been killed, Dean.”

  “Kate can handle herself.”

  “What if a herd had jumped her?”

  “What could I have done if they did? They would have eaten me too.” With that, I sat down on the couch, and Sparkles hopped up into my lap, looking pleadingly at my tuna can.

  “Let me rephrase that. What if one came out of nowhere and you weren’t there? You didn’t have her back, Dean.”

  I pondered his words, and they stung a bit because they were true. Max sent us on missions with partners because no one could afford to be alone for even a minute. Leaving Kate left her vulnerable, and that was stupid and selfish on my part. “I screwed up,” I said.

  “I hope that’s all it was.”

  I cocked a brow. “Huh? What else would it be?”

  “You’re no good to this team if you’re stressed out to the point of having hallucinations. Jackie’s gone, Dean. You can’t keep risking your life and ours to try to find her. That can get you killed. Heck, it almost did. Kate said you were attacked by zombies, and that never woulda happened if you would’ve gone back into the house.”

  “What, Lucas? Nick’s not here, so you feel like you have to fill in for him, acting like a bully and criticizing me?” I retorted.

  “No, bro. It’s not like that. Jackie’s death hit you hard, and I know you’re still grieving. It’s just...well, we can’t have you making mistakes that are gonna get one of us killed.”

  “Last time I checked, Lucas, you weren’t a freaking shrink. Can’t we just change the subject?”

  “Promise me you’ll never do that again.”

  “Fine. It’ll never happen again.”

  “Good, because I don’t want anything to happen to Kate.”<
br />
  When he smiled, I knew instantly what it was really all about, and I recalled the hug he’d given to Kate the night before. The two of them had been doing a lot of guard duty together, and it suddenly dawned on me that there was more than that going on between them. “So you like Kate, huh?” I said with a huge smile.

  “Of course I do.”

  “No, I mean, you like her—like, you think she’s hot.”

  He grinned. “She is. Val and I didn’t work out, but I’ve got a whole lot more in common with Kate.”

  “Like what?” I asked.

  “For starters, she laughs at my jokes.”

  “Does she know you like her?” I asked.

  “Um, judging by the way she kissed me last night, I’m pretty sure she does.”

  “You and Kate? Really?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does Val know?” I asked.

  “No, and I’d like to keep it that way. I’d rather not turn this whole thing into Guns and the Restless. Please keep it on the down-low, li’l bro.”

  “That’s why you came for us in the blizzard. You were worried about Kate.”

  “Yeah, but I was worried about you too. We go way back.”

  “You gotta tell Val,” I said.

  “Huh? She already knows you and me go way back.”

  “Lucas, cut the jokes. You know what I mean. Val needs to know you like Kate.”

  He let out a heavy sigh. “I’m not sure she can handle it. I think she’s still totally hung up on me, even if she won’t admit it.”

  “Trust me, Val’s moved on.”

  “I don’t think so. She wants me bad, and she likes wild guys. Plus, my hair’s grown back. My Army buzz is no longer an issue.”

  “She really hated that.”

  “Hated it? She loathed it.”

  “Well, her new bad boy has hair down to his shoulders, and he’s a little more...mature”

  He raised a brow. “What? Who?”

  I cleared my throat and tried to speak, but no words came out.

  “I have every right to know, and this is a small world, Dean. Don’t think I won’t find out, because I will.”

  “Max.”

  He stood suddenly, almost spilling the remainder of his tuna, as if it was the most shocking news he’d ever heard. “I’m sorry? Did you say Max? As in Max, our fearless leader?”