Ashes in the Mouth (Zombie Apocalypse Series Book 3)

by Jeff DeGordick

  Then all at once, the floodgates opened and her emotions poured out. She sobbed uncontrollably as she blurted out words that were completely incomprehensible at first.

  The man instinctively reeled back at her outburst, shocked to see someone in such pain.

  "He's trying to kill me!" Sarah managed at last. "He's out there! He's there right now!" Mucus filled her nose and her words came out like she had a bad cold.

  The two men pulled themselves away from the pit and looked around quickly, suddenly alarmed. They took a careful measure of the woods surrounding them, then their anxiety faded and they poked their heads back in the hole.

  "It's all right, lady," the rotund man said. "There's nobody out here but us. Maybe you just saw something strange?"

  "No! He's out there!" she cried. "He's going to come back!" Her chest burned in agony and it felt like she couldn't breathe. She started to hyperventilate and a panic attack stabbed its sharp fingers into her.

  "Okay, okay!" the man said, picking himself up from the ground and glancing at the other man. "Put the ladder in, Jimmy!"

  Jimmy passed the lantern off to him and lowered the ladder into the hole. He did it carefully, making sure not to hit Sarah with it or do it so fast as to scare her. The two men knew she was on edge, and that put them on edge.

  When the ladder was set in place, Jimmy climbed down and helped her up to her feet. She cried out in pain and told him she thought her ankle was broken. She continued to blubber, frantically telling him that the killer was going to come back, and he pulled her in tight and hugged her as she let herself go and every pent-up emotion rolled out of her like hot lava.

  Sharp pain shot up Sarah's leg anytime her left foot so much as brushed the ground, and Jimmy was careful to prop up the majority of her weight until he could hoist her over his shoulder and start up the ladder.

  "Hold on tight, now," he said as they moved up rung by rung.

  When they got to the top, Jimmy set her down and the two men threw her arms around their shoulders.

  Sarah jerked her head around, trying to get a look at the woods around them to see the killer, but the men already started to whisk her away before she could see much. She continued to sob, but she felt a little safer in their presence.

  "What's your name?" the big man asked as they slowly dragged her through the woods.

  "Sarah," she sputtered after clearing mucus from her nose.

  "Well Sarah, I'm Dale, and this is my nephew Jimmy. We just want you to know that everything's gonna be okay. You're safe."

  "No," she insisted, "he's still out there!"

  "Let's just get you inside first," Dale reasoned, "and then we can worry about it." He tried to come off as calmly as possible, but when she wasn't looking, both he and Jimmy glanced around nervously, and he felt the weight of the hunting rifle slung over his shoulder.

  A small cabin stood about fifty yards in the distance, and if Dale hadn't mentioned about taking her inside, Sarah never would have noticed it. It was clearly very old and the wood was faded gray, matching the dull trees poking up all around it. It didn't look like there would be much room inside; not enough for two people, and certainly not for three.

  They made their way to the short set of steps leading up to the door, and they helped Sarah up them one at a time. The wood screamed under their weight and almost felt like it would break. Dale pushed the door open and it emitted a similar cry, and Sarah suddenly thought that the entire thing would cave in on them.

  The interior wasn't any bigger than she had imagined, with two twin mattresses lying on opposite sides of the floor from each other at the far end of what seemed to be the one and only room in the cabin, save for a tiny bathroom next to it. A stone fireplace sat in the wall at the side of the cabin next to a window, and the air smelled of recently burned wood. Some messy dinnerware sat in front of it, and there was a bucket of clean-looking water between the two mattresses at the far end of the room.

  Dale and Jimmy laid Sarah down on one of the mattresses and she instantly started to writhe around and moan at the pain in her ankle. It had been sharp at first, but now a dull throb began to take over.

  "Just relax," Dale said. "You don't want to agitate it."

  The window let in the morning's light, and Sarah tried to look through it, still convinced that the killer would break into the cabin at any moment to murder them all, but the only thing she could see from where she lay was the sky.

  "Grab her a glass of water, will you?" he said to Jimmy, and Jimmy took an empty cup that sat near the fireplace and filled it with water from the bucket sitting between the mattresses. He handed it off to Dale and Dale lifted Sarah's head and carefully brought the cup to her lips. Sarah grabbed it and drank from it. She wanted to down the whole thing in one gulp, but she felt too weak to do so, and oddly enough, her throat was so raw that even the refreshing water going down felt painful. But it started to sooth her all the same as it slowly rolled down her throat and moistened her dry mouth.

  Dale took the cup away to let her catch her breath, then she drank more. When she was finished, Dale laid her head back down and she let out a gasp, feeling like she could finally breathe for the first time that morning. She swallowed and felt the pain start to subside, then she looked from Jimmy to Dale.

  "He's out there," she said again, but this time she began to calm down. She saw the concern return in their eyes.

  "Who's out there, Miss?" Jimmy asked. "You're making me nervous."

  "Cut it out, Jimmy!" Dale chastised. He turned his head to Sarah and asked, "Who are you talking about?"

  "I don't know," Sarah admitted. "Someone's been following me for a while. I was traveling down the highway and he started coming after me." Fresh tears stung her eyes as she relived the painful memories.

  "Why's he following you?" Dale asked.

  "I don't know," she said. "But he's been killing others. He tried to kill me, but I got away."

  "What did he look like?"

  The image of his crazed face hiding under the bed flashed in front of her eyes. That mad smile, those wide, lifeless eyes. A chill ran up her spine and made her shiver, and Jimmy grabbed a small blanket to throw over her, thinking she was just cold from the temperature outside. "He's tall," she said, looking at Jimmy. "About your height. And he had long black hair. Brown jacket, jeans, I think. I don't know other than that."

  "Was he armed?" Dale asked.

  "I don't know," she said. "I don't think so."

  "No guns?"

  She shook her head. "I don't think so."

  "Knives or anything? What did he attack you with?"

  Sarah thought about it. "He didn't seem to have anything. He just took whatever was there and used it. Sometimes he just used his bare hands." She thought about the brutal scene that she had woken up to the day before under the bridge, and she briefly wondered how he accomplished that task before she forced herself to think about something else.

  Dale sat down in a chair next to a tiny table at the foot of the other mattress and took off his baseball cap, running a hand through his short and thinning hair. "Well, we've got guns. We'll be okay." He looked at the window next to them, his eyes scanning along the trees. "We'll be okay."

  Jimmy walked up to the window and peered out, too. "I don't see anything. When was the last time you saw him?"

  Sarah stretched her head on the pillow and felt the tension in her neck ease. "He chased me here. I stayed in a house nearby for the night and he was hiding under the bed when I woke up. I ran for the woods and then I fell in your trap. I looked up and I saw him, then he was gone."

  Jimmy's eyes went wide as he looked at Dale. "Shit, Uncle Dale, that was ten minutes ago!"

  Dale instinctively reached over to his rifle sitting on the table next to them and squeezed the tarnished wood. He glanced over his shoulder at the front door and then looked at Jimmy, and the two of them shared a thought that didn't need to be spoken.

  Jimmy took the other chair from the table and
propped it under the doorknob, making sure it was wedged tightly. "What should we do?" he asked his uncle.

  Dale thought for a minute, still looking at the window, as if nature would whisper an answer to him. "We need to tend to this little lady for now. We're safe in here and we've got everything we need. Food, water, guns... we'll be okay for now. But then we might have to go hunting..."

  Sarah lifted her head off the pillow and took a good look at the two men in front of her. Dale looked to be well over two hundred pounds with a big belly, which was surprising in a world where meals didn't always come easy. He looked like he was in his late fifties, and it seemed like he knew his way around defense and survival. Jimmy appeared to be in his early twenties with a full head of light brown hair to counterbalance the short grass covering his uncle's scalp. He looked scared and seemed like he probably relied on his uncle for just about everything. But he was young and able-bodied. Strong-looking, too. Sarah was scared right along with him—terrified, really, since she'd already seen firsthand what the killer was capable of—but she seemed to be in good hands. She laid her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes, feeling all the aches and pains in her body fade as the throbbing in her ankle intensified.

  Dale was lost in a daydream, the gears turning in his head. His hands tensed up and his nervousness was palpable, despite trying to hide it. Finally, he snapped out of it. "Let's look at that ankle of yours," he said, getting out of his chair. He knelt down on the floor next to Sarah and told Jimmy to hand him the lantern and get the first aid kit from the bathroom.

  Jimmy did so and returned with the items a moment later. Dale pulled out a small pair of reading glasses and perched them on the bridge of his nose as he moved the lantern next to the mattress.

  "Just relax, Sarah," he said. "I'm going to move your ankle just a little bit. It won't hurt that much."

  She nodded.

  Very gingerly, with both hands, he scooped up her leg by her calf and the bottom of her foot and lifted it closer to his face to get a good look. Sarah winced at the pain, but she kept quiet and calm. Dale gently tried to rotate her ankle and she moaned.

  "It's okay," he said. "Almost done."

  He laid her leg back down on the mattress and prodded around the ankle gently with his fingertips, trying to feel the bone. Pain rippled up her leg, and Dale watched her face for her reaction.

  "I don't think it's broken," he said. "Hard to say for sure, but I think it might just be a sprain, which is good news for you. We'll have to wrap it up and elevate it so it doesn't swell too much, but beyond that all you can do is wait."

  "Can I walk?" she asked.

  "Not on that leg you can't."

  The thought of being immobile while there was a lunatic prowling around trying to kill her made her crazy. "But what if he comes?" she asked, the panic in her voice rising.

  Dale looked over the top of his glasses with calm eyes. "Relax," he said. "Let me and Jimmy worry about that. We'll keep you safe." He had the first aid kit opened and took out a compress and a bandage roll.

  "What if I need to go to the bathroom?" she asked.

  "Me and Jimmy will take you outside if you have to," he said. "And as luck would have it, there's a pair of crutches in the bathroom to hobble around on if you need them."

  She nodded and closed her eyes again as Dale wrapped the compress around her ankle and secured it tightly with a length of bandage.

  When he was finished, he returned all the implements into the kit and handed it back to Jimmy. "Now remember, try not to move it, and don't put any weight on it at all. You need to let it rest." He grabbed the pillow from the other mattress and propped it under her leg. "Keep it up on the pillow; you'll thank me later. Unfortunately ice is a thing of the past, barring any sudden snow, and we don't have any painkillers, so you're just going to have to grit your teeth and bear it. If the pain gets too bad, let me know and we'll figure something out."

  "Thank you," Sarah said.

  "Don't mention it."

  After a moment's pause, she asked, "Can I have some more water?"

  "Of course!" Dale said, forgetting himself. He poured some more into the cup and helped her drink it so it wouldn't spill everywhere. "Are you hungry? We've got some jerky if you want it."

  "Okay," she said. She didn't notice until he mentioned it, but her stomach was grumbling, and she realized it had almost been twenty-four hours since she'd eaten.

  Dale handed Jimmy the rifle, but kept his grip on it as Jimmy reached for it. "Be careful," he said. "Come right back."

  Jimmy nodded and fished a key out of his pocket as his uncle relinquished the rifle. He took a careful look out the window before deciding the coast was clear and removing the chair propped under the doorknob, then he disappeared outside. Sarah heard him rifling around in what sounded like a shed behind the cabin, and he returned a minute later carrying a big handful of dried meat.

  Jimmy replaced the chair under the doorknob and the three of them ate and kept each other company as the day stretched into the afternoon and then the evening.

  8

  Cabin Fever

  Dale and Jimmy helped Sarah outside at one point to relieve herself, while Jimmy awkwardly stood nearby with his back turned to her in case she needed any help. But she managed okay and then they took her back inside where she was safe. The pain in her ankle had gotten worse. She tried to ignore it, but it was becoming increasingly harder to take her mind off of it. Neither of them had spotted the killer that she described, but they took her warning seriously, and neither of them could quite remember the last time they felt so on edge.

  When the sun started to set, Dale and Jimmy stood outside the cabin, trying to hunt dinner.

  Dale silently tapped Jimmy on the shoulder and then pointed through the trees. Jimmy followed the imaginary line extending from his finger and he quietly raised the rifle.

  Forty yards away, a deer walked by, oblivious to them. It slowly wound its way through the trees, dropping its head every few paces and sniffing along the ground.

  Jimmy held his breath and waited until he had the perfect shot lined up. When the deer stopped between two trees, leaving its whole body exposed, he squeezed the trigger.

  A loud bang echoed through the woods and the deer dropped.

  Jimmy trotted excitedly and knelt down next to it as Dale sauntered over. "Got him!" he cried. "Right in the heart!"

  Dale walked up and inspected his handiwork. "That's a clean shot," he said. "Good work." He clapped his nephew on the shoulder.

  "I'll get the tarp," Jimmy said, and he left for the shed behind the cabin, returning a moment later with a square green tarp about six feet wide.

  They laid it on the ground and rolled the deer onto it, then they pulled up the corners and dragged the whole thing back toward the cabin.

  When they were fifteen yards away, Dale stopped.

  "What's wrong?" Jimmy asked.

  "You hear that?" Dale asked.

  Jimmy's ears perked up and they both listened.

  Through the gentle breeze brushing past their ears, they could hear a muffled sound, like something was moaning. Their first thought was that there was a zombie nearby, but then they realized that it was coming from inside the cabin.

  They left the deer on the ground and hurried back inside where Sarah should have been resting peacefully. Their hearts beat quickly as Dale fiddled with the doorknob and shoved the creaking door open.

  The scene inside the cabin was just as they had left it: empty except for Sarah lying on the mattress with her leg propped up on the pillow. But she was writhing around and moaning in pain. Her skin had broken out into a sweat and she looked almost delirious.

  Dale knelt down next to her and pointed her chin at him. "Hey, are you okay?" He pulled one of her eyelids open with his thumb and was met with a spaced-out look and dilated pupils.

  "It hurts," she moaned. "It won't stop."

  Dale looked down at her ankle and saw that it had started to swell. It
wasn't too bad, but he knew the pain she felt was real, and there would be no easy way to cope with it or get through the night for her if they didn't do something about it.

  "Uncle Dale?" Jimmy said, wondering what to do.

  Dale looked outside and saw the sky was already painted with the pinks and oranges that signaled the very last of the day's light. He wrestled with himself about what to do, but seeing the tortured look on Sarah's face gave him the answer, no matter how much he didn't like it. "We have to get her something for the pain," he said.

  Jimmy thought for a moment. "There's that pharmacy about five miles down the highway," he said slowly, the realization of what they might have to do coming over him as he, too, saw that it was almost dark.

  "There is," Dale agreed. He stared at Sarah for a long time, as if he was measuring her pain against the risk of what he was going to ask his nephew to do.

  "I can make it," Jimmy said, nervous but brave.

  "I know you can," Dale said.

  Jimmy turned for the door, but Dale stopped him.

  "Hold on," Dale said, and Jimmy waited. "Be more careful than you ever have in your life."

  Jimmy nodded and he knew they were both thinking of the mysterious killer that Sarah described. The danger wasn't quite real enough to them, because they hadn't even seen him and couldn't know for sure that she hadn't just been imagining things. But they weren't about to let their guard down. He opened the door, looked around on the stoop, then glanced over his shoulder at his uncle and nodded before he closed the door behind him and disappeared.

  Dale stood up and walked to the window, pressing his face against the glass to catch a final glimpse of his nephew before he was gone. When he was out of sight, Dale went into the bathroom and retrieved a loaded pistol that he tucked into his pants. He took the chair and propped it back under the doorknob for peace of mind, then he turned his attention back to Sarah and tried to make her comfortable.