by Tim Meyer
“Not much, Mom. Not much at all.” Josh stamped his cigarette out in the glass ashtray, then stretched his arms behind his head. He was tired. The effects of the oxycotton he had popped three hours ago started wearing off. In an hour, he'd be completely drained and ready for bed.
Outside, something exploded with a thunderous bang. The power went out. Meridith nearly jumped out of her skin. “Oh, dear!” she yelped.
Josh giggled. “Relax, Mom. It's just the power. It'll come back on any minute.”
About thirty minutes after the power went out, Josh decided he had had enough. He longed for his cramped, grimy apartment. His mother's house grew tiresome in no time at all. He only hung around hoping she would leave the room, so he could fish a few twenties out of her purse. He had a craving for Taco Bell and payday wasn't until the end of the week. Instead, Meridith shuffled around the kitchen, occasionally peaking through the window into the dead world, reciting the names of those who walked around without any agenda.
“And there goes Brenda Johnston. What the hell is wrong with her? She keeps looking up into the sky and walking in circles,” she said, sounding confused.
Josh rested his head on his hands. Yawning, he struggled to keep his eyes open. He couldn't wait any longer. Stolen money or no stolen money, he decided it was time to leave.
He stood up from the table, grabbing his cigarettes. Pocketing them, he headed around the counter. “I'm gonna run to the bathroom, then I'm heading out.”
“Head out? You just got here,” she whined.
“I've been here over an hour, Mom.”
“Well, can you wait until the power comes back on? I don't want to be by myself without power.”
He sighed heavily as he entered the bathroom, never bothering to answer her question. As he listened to the sound of his piss rain into the toilet-bowl water, Josh swore he heard the front door swing open. There was a loud bang, something heavy colliding with the floor. Then he heard his mother shriek.
“Oh, Tilda. What happened to your fa—” Josh heard his mother say, but her words were cut short by another ear-scraping scream. Then there were other noises. It sounded like dogs growling. Quickly zipping his pants, being careful not to mutilate any parts he might need down the road, he rushed into the hallway.
“Mom? You okay? I heard—”
He walked into the kitchen and saw his mother on the floor, a sea of red beneath her. There was a woman—or at least it looked like a woman—kneeling over her, feasting on a long string of Meridith's intestines. His mother was squirming, screaming out, extending her arms toward her son. She cried for help. Her eyes bulged out of her skull as she yelled frantically. The woman growled brutishly. She kept shoveling the long pink strand of meat into her mouth, devouring it ravenously.
Josh's legs felt absent, as if they left the room without him. He froze, his stare locked on the woman's eyes. They were hazy and lifeless. Gore had settled around her mouth. Some ran down her blouse, a once-pretty blue and flowery-patterned fabric, but now stained dark with blood. The woman's hair was matted with crimson fluids mixed with chunks of raw meat.
Before Josh thought about rushing to his mother's aid, a man appeared in the doorway. His gaze mirrored the woman's. He too was covered in the blood of the people he had mercilessly feasted on. He leered contemptuously at Josh before bolting toward him like a bullet from its chamber.
Instinctively, Josh turned, running as fast as his rubbery legs would carry him. He felt the thing on his heels, the rotten aroma that perspired from its pores filled the air. Josh imagined the man's fingers on the back of his neck, inspiring him to run faster.
Fear propelled him around the corner, his mother's bedroom at the end of the long hallway inviting him to safety. Josh sprinted toward it, glancing over his shoulder just in time to witness the intruder's uncoordinated legs twist, causing him to stumble to the ground. He didn't stay down for very long. Snarling, the bloody man quickly found his feet and continued after Josh.
Josh scrambled to his mother's room. He closed the door behind him, immediately locking it.
He jumped back when the zombie ran into the door full speed, cracking the frame, and busting through on its second attempt.
The dead man stumbled into the room drunkenly. His legs criss-crossed. He tripped, falling to the carpet. Josh looked beyond him, down the hallway. He saw the woman with scraps of his mother's flesh hanging from her mouth rushing toward him. He sped into the bathroom, locking the door behind him.
Zombies, he said to himself. That's what they are, aren't they? Fucking zombies. He did not know what else to call them. He heard reports of people high on some unknown drugs walking around eating people, acting like zombies. The closest incident occurred in New Brunswick, at Rutgers University, about an hour from Josh's apartment. A professor went berserk and stumbled into a freshman's dorm room, killing three students, hospitalizing another seven before police were forced to put him down permanently.
Fists pounding on the door broke his daydream, forcing Josh to look for an exit strategy. His only way out seemed to be the single-hung window on the wall next to the toilet. He pushed it open. The door frame cracked behind him. He released the small clips on both sides of the window. The screen popped out and fell to the grassy ground below. Then, he dove headfirst out into the zombie-infested world.
Above him, something snarled. He glanced up, seeing the two zombies reaching for him. Not very smart, he thought. Just like the movies. As if on cue, they abandoned their hopeless efforts and disappeared, seeking an alternative way to reach their meal.
Josh ran to the front of the house, fishing through his pockets for his car keys. “Motherfucker,” he muttered. He removed his hands from his empty pockets, realizing he had left his keys on the kitchen counter. Josh quickly debated whether or not to sneak back inside and grab them. As he rounded the corner, he saw the residents of Pine Coast Village being flushed out of their homes by the living dead. Josh decided it was better to do the second idea that came to mind.
Run.
He witnessed an old lady being eaten alive while screaming for help that would never come. A man tried to flee from two zombies in white coats sporting name tags above their right-breast pocket. The old man could not run very fast; two zombies tackled him to the ground with ease. The sounds of his body being torn apart deafened his final cries for help.
Taking a moment to survey the chaos around him, Josh sprinted down the middle of the street, glancing at people being eviscerated on their front lawns. A car came barreling down the street, three zombies clinging to its hood. The driver ended up speeding into a house on the corner, crashing through the vinyl siding, ending up in the homeowner's living room. The zombies started to pound on the windshield, their dinner helplessly trapped inside. Josh tried blocking out the murderous screams of the living.
Up ahead, flashing lights shone on the dusky sky. He became relieved almost instantly, hopeful he was going to make it out of this nightmare. Never did he think he'd say it, but “Thank God, the cops are here,” fell from his lips. With barely any air left in his lungs, he ran toward the flashing lights as if they were the finish line in a very long, enduring race.
The swarm of flesh-eating corpses outnumbered the cops. A few officers drew their weapons immediately, firing at the oncoming onslaught. Josh watched a few zombies take bullets in the head and fall to the ground like puppets suddenly cut from their string. The officers late to the trigger were slaughtered quickly. The zombies took them with ease. Within minutes, other police officers suffered a similar fate. Josh noticed the remaining policemen were running, returning to their vehicles in cowardly attempts to save themselves. The others were dismembered in the street.
Josh bolted into someone's backyard. The fact that the authorities had no control over the situation got him thinking about the government and what they were doing about this, if they were doing anything at all. Jersey couldn't have been the only place being ransacked by the dead. He'd seen the
news reports. It was happening everywhere. Kentucky, Colorado, California, Florida, Pennsylvania—shit, Pennsylvania, he thought.
Josh tried concentrating on something else. Baseball season. Video games. The ceramic statue of a fire-breathing dragon where he kept his stash. Olivia.
Through all the madness, he had almost forgotten about her. Olivia, his ex-girlfriend of two years, was visiting her aunt in Harrisburg. It was a trip she took a few times a year. Josh had never been invited. It was mostly because Olivia's parents hated him, which was fine by Josh, because he hated them equally, if not more so. They forbade him to see her on countless occasions, continuously reminding their daughter that Josh Emberson was a good-for-nothing druggie, who offered her very little in life and would eventually leave her broken-hearted and penniless.
None of that mattered to Olivia Vander. She saw whom she was going to see and that was the end of it. She was twenty-two for Christ's sakes, capable of making her own decisions, however poor. Her parents pulled the old “if you're going to live underneath our roof” speech-slash-ultimatum, but that never worked out in the end. They never had the guts to kick their baby out. They knew this, and more importantly, so did Olivia. She didn't care. Fact was, she liked partying and getting high with him.
Josh thought about getting high again, as he did almost every other second. He almost thought about getting high as much as he did sex.
Josh crept around the corner of a quiet house. In the backyard, he spotted a child shuffling through the guts of her pet dog. The little girl brought handfuls of its innards to her mouth like it was the first meal she had in weeks. As she continued, Josh wondered if the little one could fit the whole dog inside her.
His movements drew her attention. She glanced up at him, her cheeks caked with the dog's guts, and snarled. She hissed as she rose to her feet. Josh looked ahead, seeing nothing but woods. He decided it was better than heading back to the streets. He sprinted, his lungs still burning for air. Josh's legs carried him into the wilderness, where branches and leaves met him with unwelcoming arms. He felt twigs brush against his face, scratching him as he flew by. He heard leaves being stamped into the ground behind him. The little girl's beastly outbursts motivated him to run faster.
Turning his head, he saw the little girl keeping pace with him. Jesus, zombies aren't supposed to be able to run!
Josh heard the little girl let out a high-pitched yelp, something a wounded cat might make. He looked back and noticed the girl was no longer following him. Instead, she was on the ground, trying to crawl after him. Her foot had sunk beneath the earth. Josh stopped running, stared back at the little girl. She was snapping at him, growling ferociously. She dug her fingers into the dirt, trying to pull herself free from the small sinkhole that held her.
He watched her for a moment, analyzing her actions. She struggled to pull herself forward, her leg bending awkwardly out of place. It wasn't long before the bone snapped. Josh heard the break, reminding him of a thick tree branch being halved. He cringed as the sound filled the forest around him.
Then the girl was free. It appeared the leg had become detached, and Josh watched in horror as the little girl crawled toward him, stringing along red, gooey chunks of meat where her leg used to be. There was so much blood coming from the wound, Josh couldn't see where the dismembered part lay. He turned away, still sickened from what he had seen earlier.
Josh wanted to puke, but forced himself to run instead. He continued in the same direction, as far away from Pine Coast Village as his legs carried him. Up ahead, he saw a clearing. A road waited for him beyond the pines. Josh didn't know the area particularly well, so where he was going to end up was a mystery. Suddenly, Josh wished he had visited his mother more often. He thought about what a shitty son he'd been all those years, ever since his father left her for another woman, one much younger and with less problems. One who could remember shit. Josh failed her. Meridith needed someone, and her son was supposed to be that someone. This upset him to a certain degree, but Josh knew very well that if the apocalypse had not been triggered, he would not be at war with himself. He would've continued to feed off her, as he had done since he sucked the nutrients out of her nipples when he was a baby. He wouldn't have stopped until she had nothing left. Much like the way the zombies never stopped. They were always hungry for more. Only, they were hungry for the flesh of the living, instead of drugs, money, and sex.
A horn honked, interrupting the peaceful silence around him. He found himself standing in the middle of the highway. A car barreled toward him. He could smell the rubber tires grinding against the asphalt, the squeal of the brakes slamming his eardrums. He had no time to react.
Josh Emberson remembered his shoulder hitting the hood really hard before the world went completely opaque.
CHAPTER FIVE
“You awake?” Ross asked.
Ben twitched. “Yeah, I'm awake.”
“Can't sleep, huh?” Landry was asleep, his head resting on his father's shoulder. Everyone else was asleep with the exception of Josh. He sat with his back against the wall, counting the minutes until their captors revealed their master plan. “Me neither. My adrenaline is still going I guess.”
“Thanks for doing that, by the way,” Josh said. “I would have done it myself, but...” Josh motioned to the four chain-linked walls around him.
“Yeah, well, it was my pleasure. Kid deserved it.”
“So where you from, Ross?” Ben asked.
“Carver's Grove, New Jersey. Not sure how far we are from home. What about you?”
“Red River,” Ben said.
“We're practically neighbors. I have a few buddies at work who live in Red River.”
“Ben is trying to get to Pittsburgh. To save his son,” Josh told him.
“Is that right?” Ross asked, rubbing Landry's shoulder.
Ben nodded.
“Damn. If I were in your shoes, I don't know what I'd do.” He peered down at his son, grimacing affectionately. “I don't know if these chain-link cages could keep me contained.”
“Well, I don't plan on staying here very long,” Ben said.
“Easier said than done, brother. You heard, Bozo. They had him in here for weeks. Weeks.”
“Well, we don't have weeks. We have a few hours. Maybe less. I don't know.”
Ross glanced over at Josh, who shrugged casually.
“What are you talking about, brother?” Ross asked, a trace of uneasiness in his voice.
“Yeah, Ben,” Josh said. “What the hell are you talking about? Before our friend started shooting his mouth off, you were saying something really bad was about to happen. What is it?”
Ben's eyes darted around the room, surveying the other prisoners. “I didn't want to say anything before because I don't want to cause a panic. We're in enough trouble, and if we're going to get out of here, we have to have our wits about us.”
“Well, everyone's sleeping,” Josh said. “Tell us.”
Ben inhaled unclean air, then exhaled. “Okay. I got in touch with my ex. Things out there... aren't looking very promising.”
“What do you mean?” Ross asked.
“I mean the entire East Coast is one great big ball of fucked.” He closed his eyes, wishing he didn't have to be the one to tell them. “The government has decided to contain the outbreak by dropping a bomb on us.”
Josh shook his head. “No.”
“Yes.”
Ross's eyes became glossy as they drifted toward the floor. “Shit.”
“Yup.” Ben stood up. “If we don't find a way to—let's say Ohio—in the next few hours, we're going to become awfully crispy.”
“They're going to bomb us?” Paul Scott asked, removing his trucker's hat. He wiped away sweat from his forehead.
“So much for everyone being asleep,” Josh muttered.
“Yes, Paul—it is Paul, right?” Ben asked.
Paul nodded.
“Paul, we would like to keep this a secret. We don't need
the others freaking out and panicking. Okay?”
“The government...” he repeated, almost catatonic. “Washington. They'll bomb themselves, I suppose.”
“For the greater good, Paul,” Josh said. “Or because they simply don't know what else to do.”
“I thought the government was supposed to look out for its people. Not destroy them because they don't know what else to do,” Ross chimed.
“I don't know,” Ben said. “But what I do know, is that my son is out there and I need to find him.” His eyes began to sting. “I will find him.”
Ross nodded. “I'll help you, brother.”
“I appreciate that.” Ben turned to Josh. “You in?”
“Hell yeah. I'm not doing anything but waiting to become human charcoal.”
“Paul, do I have your word you won't tell the others? Not until the moment's right.”
Paul shrugged. “When is the right moment to tell a person such a thing?”
Ben shook his head. “We'll know when it happens. Until then...”
“My lips are sealed.”
“Thank you.”
He wondered if he would even get the opportunity.
Hours later, some of the other prisoners started waking. Ben dozed off a few times, feeling as he had the night before: exhausted and running on empty. The sickness was gone, but he was dehydrated and malnourished like he had been with the flu.
Ben awoke to the sound of two voices arguing over something his brain had not yet processed.
“Oh, here we go,” Josh muttered.
“Here we go nothing,” John sneered. “Are we going to pretend that we don't see the obvious? That man is right,” he stated, nodding to Paul, “the government doesn't give a shit about us. If they did, they would've never let it come to this. Hell, they're probably the ones who created this shit, letting it spread across the coast to see how many people it infected. Just to see what would happen.”