The Long Road Ahead: A Zombie Tale

by Key, Thomas

  Slowly, with her rifle extended in front of her, she climbed the old wooden steps one by one. Left foot, right foot, she said to herself as she tried to contain her ever faster, beating heart. She was sure that it was beating so hard that anyone within a mile could hear it. As one of her feet landed on a step about halfway up the staircase, a loud creak came from the old wood. She froze instantly, her eyes shooting up to the top of the steps. She held her breath and her finger tensed, causing her to pull back slightly on the trigger of her weapon. A moment passed, and then another. Nothing happened. She felt her breath escape her in a whoosh as no new sounds came to her ears and she took another step. As she made it to the top step, she then heard something new. She couldn't place the sound though. It was like a wet smacking noise. A dog drinking out of a water bowl might be the closest she could get to a descriptor. One of the doors at the end of the hall had light coming from underneath it. The light flickered and danced, giving the outline of the door an eerie feel. She half expected the door to lead to another dimension the way the light shone around it. Bella slowly stepped to the door and quietly pushed it open. Inside, a woman, dressed in an old worn out nightgown and what appeared to be nothing else was hunched over with her back to Isabel. The smell in the room hit her immediately. It was the unmistakable smell of death and decay. Another floorboard creaked, and the sound stopped. The woman stopped moving and turned slowly to peer at Bella from under her mess of long brown hair. Isabel once again froze. "Hello...?" she asked as the woman stood, still not saying a word in return. The woman flung herself at Bella, running straight at her. At the last moment, the woman was pulled back to the other side of the room violently. Isabel in disbelief checked herself, realizing just how close to death she had come. The woman inside the room had hit the wall behind her so hard that it appeared to knock her out. Bella took another step into the room and felt all her muscles tense and she cried out in pain as she hit the ground, the unmistakable feeling of electricity coursing through her. As she landed on the wood floor, her head tilted back the way she had come. A man stood in the hallway behind her, with a stun gun still in his hand. Her muscles had locked up, and she was unable to move other than the random spasm. The man entered the room and walked to the infected. Yes, the woman had to be one of them. A body of what used to be someone lay on the floor where the woman had been hunched over. Pooled blood had stained the floor in several spots, and this kill had been fresh she figured.

  "You should know better than to sneak up on people," a deep, husky voice said from the doorway. Bella had finally been able to turn her head to face her attacker, the man behind the voice. From an end table beside the bed, he picked up what looked like a handmade muzzle. He placed it over the infected woman's face, and then stood back up. "I was worried I'd have to go back out again to hunt for more food. Then you drop in so to speak… what wonderful luck. Food delivery is the best, am I right?" he said with a dark grin on his rugged bearded face as he approached her. A long recent scar stretched along his right cheek almost from his eye to his chin. Her fingers were able to move and she gripped the carpet, trying to push herself away from him. "Where do you think you're going?" he asked as he stepped on one of her hands. She let out a yelp in pain. "Why don't you stay for dinner?" The man laughed out loud. He placed the stun gun into his right pants pocket and pulled a large knife from his waistband. "You are a real pretty one. What a shame." He sighed. "But Mama's gotta eat." As the knife approached her throat, out of the corner of her eye, she saw movement. The woman jumped onto the back of the man, pulling him backwards. "What the hell!" he exclaimed as he fell back. The woman clawed at him, and he brought up his arms in a defensive posture. The muzzle was still firmly in place over her face. With the man's foot off her hand, Bella was able to move again. She slowly sat up, feeling her body return to her. The knife was still in the man’s hand, and he saw Bella moving away. He swung out, cutting her arm with the tip of the knife. She screamed out in pain. "I've had enough of this!" she yelled as she rushed over and pulled the zombie's muzzle off from behind. Newly freed, her body radiating with undead excitement as she inched closer and closer to the man’s face. "No, Mamma, no!" he yelled as she sank her teeth into one of his flailing arms. He pulled the arm back and left a wide opening for her to dig into his exposed neck. He screamed, and blood began to leak from his mouth as he did so. His dark blue eyes met Bella’s as she grabbed her gear. She took one last look back, and then closed the door behind her, leaving the horrors of this home behind her.

  Chapter 12

  I moved as quickly as I could, attempting to outrun my undead pose. The cuts and bruises from the two windows that I had gone through stung as the cold night air whipped around me. The group from the hospital entrance had merged with the group that was not even a block up the street, and a good number of Zs were now on my tail. I tried to lose them around houses and businesses, taking twists and turns and attempting to keep myself out of sight. They couldn't outrun me, but I knew that they could surely outlast me. My number one priority was making it back to Rachel. My second priority was alerting the compound. I knew this crowd behind me would follow us to the ends of the earth and we'd have a massive fight on our hands when we stopped to rest. I pushed myself harder, crossing the street six blocks up from where the closest ghoul was still looking to the south, or so I thought. I literally ran right into one of the fuckers. I plowed right into this huge fella as I was so focused on the infected behind me that I didn’t bother to check in front of me. He was much bigger than I was, and I fell backwards after making contact. After taking a couple of steps back, he shuffled his way over to me much more quickly than I had anticipated. Like a football lineman, he charged at me. I was caught so off guard by the big guy’s speed that as I tried to move out of the way, it made contact and took me to the ground. The air in my lungs began to expel as the zombie’s weight was put onto my much smaller frame. The zombie was growling and extremely aggressive, trying repeatedly to bite pretty much anywhere that it could. I could feel that I was pinned and had it not been for my arms being above my head when he took me down, I would have been food rather quickly. I had my rifle up, his teeth audibly snapping from the pressure of his bites on the barrel. Drool ran down his mouth and onto my cheeks. It was absolutely disgusting. As we fought for what seemed like hours, I spotted the horde from the hospital making its way in our direction. “Fuck!” I yelled in anguish as they came ever closer. The big man shifted, trying to reach further down to my next and gave me just a little more leverage with my feet. It didn’t help much other than my light kicks on the infected’s ass. For some reason, I just knew that was not going to be the straw that broke the mule’s back. Or however the analogy goes. The horde had just about made up the distance, and I had not gotten any closer to extracting myself from the big boy. I heaved with all of my might, to no avail. It was at that point, I began to realize just how screwed that I was. What a horrible way to go, I thought to myself as I watched the horde reach within 10 feet. As the [1]first of the pack reached us, it did something very strange. This very athletic muscular man reached over and pushed the fat one out of the way. Maybe it had been because it wanted a better go at my throat, or maybe it was that the muscle man was just as big of a douche bag in death as he had been in life. As the big one shifted, losing his center of gravity and began to slide off of me, I helped him along by pushing up with my hips. It was the strangest hip thrust that I’ve ever done and frankly, I would never revisit it. Muscles had lunged for where I had been, but I was already on the move. I rolled quickly to my left, away from the pile of zombie and his attempted dinner thief. I had my rifle up and was gasping for large gulps of air. I watched in amazement as the big one had stood back up, and grabbed muscles. It bowled the other zombie over, and I heard a snap as he had landed on the athletic zombie right on the neck causing it to visibly break. “Holy Shit,” I said out loud as I was backing up. Big boy stood back up and came after me once again. As awestruck as I was at the fact tha
t I had witnessed one infected kill another, I had enough wits left in my oxygen starved brain to make a hasty retreat. I turned and began to weave my way through the group of infected, dodging outstretched arms and backtracking to the rear of the horde. I headed back down the road, pulling the infected with me. I then continued my attempts to evade them until finally, they were gone from sight. I doubled back to the safe house and slowly crept up to it. When I was just about to reach for the doorknob, I felt a hand on my shoulder. I instinctively elbowed the figure and pulled my sidearm. I held my fire, as I saw the outline of Ken on the ground. "Aww, shit dude. You scared the hell out of me," I told him, holstering my pistol. I reached down a hand to help him up. I saw tear streaks on his grime ridden face and knew something had happened. The look in his eyes told me not to ask, his eyes seemed to radiate anguish. We were close enough friends that I felt in my soul that he'd tell me about it someday, but not today.

  We both entered together, seeing two-gun muzzles come to bare on us as soon as we walked into the room. I waited for a moment with my hands up and saw both weapons lower. One look at Rachel and I could tell that whatever she had was getting worse. She was pale, exhausted and had broken out into hot and cold flashes with sweating and labored breathing. Ken and I both threw our bags down on the floor next to the couch. I told Isabel to bring an end table over to us. She did, and using paper towels and plastic wrap, we formed a makeshift hospital table. Kenneth spread out the medication that he had found, and I did so with the tools. Soon, I was stitching her wound up. She had kept pressure on the worst part of the wound like a champ. I hoped that we had gotten back in time to avoid any kind of serious damage. She grunted and cried through the procedure, and I know I would have done the same. The fact that someone with absolutely no real medical experience was shoving a needle through her skin, then pulling the needle through the other side and forcing both sides of her gash together is just nuts to me. She was taking it better than I could have imagined. "This is going to be a wicked looking scar," I told her as we were finishing up. "Great, that’s just what I've always wanted," she responded quietly as the pain meds began to work their magic. As soon as we were done, I wiped her wound clean and she fell fast asleep. I wondered if she had stayed awake the entire time just to make sure it was done right, or she couldn't rest until the hard part was over. That woman was the strongest that I had ever met, mentally and physically.

  I sat down with my back against the arm of the couch and I felt sleep creeping into my head as well. Then like a flash, I remembered. "Shit," I said, standing up. "We've got to let Lucaya know that this swarm of infected could reach our compound. They need to be put on alert." I looked around the living room. "Is there anything we can use as a stretcher?" I asked the two. Bella spoke up, "We could use a bathroom door. They're not hard to take off, and they're the cheap ones. Very light wood." I looked at Kenneth who nodded. Alright, let's get down to business. I sang in my head on the way upstairs, to defeat...the Huns. I quietly laughed to myself as I began to pull the screws out of the door with my multitool. Don't worry if you don't get it, that one’s for me. If you do get it though, I applaud you.

  We had to quietly strap her down and prepare on the front porch. Bringing her outside on the door from inside would require turning her sideways which while hilarious, would have been quite problematic. With Rachel strapped down to the door using strips of bed linens, we readied ourselves to make a run for it. We were also able to make harnesses using the linens, which we tied to myself and Kenneth to help support Rachel's weight. We secured all our gear, and Ken and I both grabbed a side of the door. As we brought her up to about elbow height, Bella led the way, still holding Rachel's AR at the ready. As we crossed the street about three blocks down from the temporary refuge, we saw one, and then two, then more of the undead directly in our path. "We don't have the time or energy to keep running around," I told her. "Make us a path!" I said. With that command, she opened fire. Her aim was off; I imagine she had never fired an AR before. Headshots took a ton of practice, and not having a rifle zeroed to your specific shooting style is a major learning curve. At the very least, she was knocking them down or pushing them back. I'd take that over my alternative of lightly nudging them with my shoulder. We moved as quickly as possible, carrying the wounded woman between us. The gunshots were loud in the still of the night and I saw an increasing number of Zs coming from every direction. "Fuck," I whispered as we trotted along. With the weight and the stress rising among us, we began to feel like we were the very last steaks being served in a five-star steak house that was having a free if eaten in one hour special. Finally, we could see the lights of the parking lot of Lucaya. I saw a few guards point in our direction and one of them ran into the first building. Another came down from a makeshift guard post on the roof and opened the gate. Once it was open wide enough to get our makeshift stretcher in, he helped carry it in. Ken and the guard took over, while I huffed and puffed for a moment, out of breath... Obviously. I saw George work his way out of the building and come towards me. "Where have you all been? We were about to send out a rescue party," he said, looking anxiously at the two men's backs as they brought Rachel inside. "I'm glad you didn't yet. We've got a large crowd of infected heading this way. We need to get everyone to the fences and sharp shooters to the roof. We're going to have to slug this one out tonight. Just one block away, I saw the first zombie as he shambled his way down the street towards us. George also saw the writing on the wall. He looked back at me and nodded. He ran back inside as I closed the gate behind us. As our congregation of survivors filtered out of the compound and took up positions around the parameter of the fence, I saw the main body of infected come into view. It was apparently one of those situations where a friend told a friend who told a friend who posted on social media and next thing you know, a quiet get-together turned into a major block party. Easily, a couple of hundred Zs had decided that we were their new favorite food destination. I highly doubted that we’d be featured on a TripAdvisor review page anytime soon though. Our past hour or two's worth of gunfire and excitement had probably pulled even more than normal from the outlying area. George brought me his bullhorn, holding his own rifle in his other hand. I perked up a bit and used it. When would I ever get another chance to do so? There wasn’t a reason to be quiet tonight any longer. "Remember! Take a breath between each shot. Aim for the head. It isn't a race, and as long as we keep killing them, we'll be fine," I told the assembled firing squad. I heard random shots start to ring out, as the sharpshooters began taking out the front ranks of ghouls from the rooftop. "Here we go," I whispered to myself as I shouldered my rifle and took aim.

  Chapter 13

  The first dozen or so Zs reached our iron bars on the parameter of the parking lot at nearly the same time. They smashed up against the fence as blood and flesh began seeping off their decomposing bodies as the rounds from our weapons made contact. No matter how many I kill, it is always a sickening sight. You'd think after bashing in zombie skulls, decapitating them and don't forget about the head shots, that we'd become immune someway to the horrors of it all. Unfortunately, we never do get numb to it. That may or may not be a good thing in the end. Each of us has a split second to wonder who the zombie in front of us used to be. Their clothing, their bodily damage and even their hair give small clues into their past. It was something that you learned to push into the back of your mind as you destroyed another infected person. It is our survival instinct. We all grieve in our own ways for the Zs that we kill. Especially when it’s our friends and family members that we must give final rights to. I had just long enough for all of this to run through my head as I switched out my rifle's empty magazine with a fresh one. We had a whopping 18 able-bodied survivors who were able to take up the fight. A child of the compound, an 8-year old girl was also doing her part by running loaded magazines of ammunition to the defenders in the parking lot. Several more children and elderly were constantly refilling our empty mags with fresh rounds while r
emaining in the safety of the apartments behind us. I fired and then I took a breath and fired again. Then I rinsed and repeated. I saw bodies being shredded by our outgoing gunfire. It was as glorious as it was devastating. Before they had reached the gates, we had pulled several construction site style lighting systems out of storage. We weren’t concerned with the noise any longer, so the generators were powered on and our compound was bathed in light. With our parking lot lights illuminating about 15 feet beyond our fence, I saw someone that I recognized in the middle of the mayhem. The blonde hair of a formerly 5’10 skinny man stood out of the crowd. In New Mexico, bright blonde hair was just not that common. I saw his scraggly face and instantly guided my rifle towards him. The man’s name was Aaron. He was someone with whom I previously had run-ins with and he was an absolute ass bag. I took several steps forward, making sure I was as close as possible without being in arm’s length. As I brought my AR up to my shoulder, I smiled inwardly as I pulled the trigger and watched his head snap back from the round. A look of what could have been anger passed over his face as his head rocked forward and he fell over, the back of his head showing a baseball size hole where the bullet exploded through it. Before you gasp in horror at my feelings about this, take a few moments to see it from my perspective. This man, or at least who he once was, completely ruined my life. How, you ask? Have you ever loved someone with all your heart, only to have that person ripped from your side? When you’ve dedicated your entire world to someone, just to have some asshole like this man take her from you, because he wanted to play the game and the girl fell for it. The pain and the anguish of losing everything that you've worked so hard for, years of hopes and wishes being shattered because of only a few 'minor indiscretions.' You never ever truly get over it.