Just Another Day in the Zombie Apocalypse (Episode 8)

by Mortimer, L. C.

  “Throw in a couple more bottles,” Mark said, tossing two to Torrance.

  “Look,” Kyle finally said, spinning to face them. “You have to stop.”

  Alice and Mark stared at him like he was an unruly child who had suddenly decided he no longer liked his favorite food. Shock. They had shock on their faces.

  “I know you don’t realize you’re doing it, but you’re hovering, and you’re treating us both like we’re invalids or otherwise incapable of taking care of ourselves.”

  “We didn’t mean to-”

  “I know,” Kyle cut Alice off. “I know you mean well, but please just stop. Let us do this. We both have been sitting around on our asses, twiddling our thumbs and trying to figure out how to not go insane. We need to get outside.”

  “I’m sorry,” Mark said. Kyle appreciated that. “And good luck today.”

  “How long do you think you’ll be gone for?” Alice asked.

  “All day, at least. I wouldn’t mind wandering a bit farther than usual,” Torrance said. “Maybe we’ll stay the night somewhere.”

  “Two days,” Kyle said decisively. He’d been thinking about it for awhile. It was enough time for them to walk or find a car that could get them somewhere. He’d seen Raven. He wanted to know what else was happening in the world.

  In truth, it didn’t matter if they were gone longer. They didn’t have working cell phones. There was no way for them to reach out to Alice and Mark to let them know whether they were safe or not.

  And Kyle could do with some time away from the lodge.

  It was their safe house. It was their haven. During the last two weeks, though, it felt more like a prison than anything else. Alice and Mark had done a great job fortifying the building, collecting tools, and setting traps along the perimeter of the property, but Kyle needed a break.

  What he needed was a month on a cruise ship with round-the-clock martinis, but this was the next best thing.

  “We should get going,” Torrance said, grabbing her backpack. She slung it over her shoulders. Mark handed over the keys to one of the cars. They had a few now and one wouldn’t be missed.

  “Take care of yourselves,” Alice gave each of them a hug.

  Mark shook Kyle’s hand and then Torrance’s.

  “Be safe,” he said. It was weird: a relic from a time long past. Kyle and Torrance probably wouldn’t be safe, but that was what you said when someone left. You told them to be safe, to take care of themselves.

  “Thanks,” Torrance said.

  Then they were out.

  They headed to the car and Torrance tossed Kyle the keys.

  “I thought you were driving.”

  “Fat fucking chance,” she said. “This is my first time out of the lodge in forever. I want to stare out of the window while you do all the work.”

  Kyle laughed, but hopped in the driver’s side of an SUV and pulled out of the parking spot. He headed down the winding driveway, through the woods. At the end of the driveway, he stopped. The two of them hopped out of the vehicle to move the barricade. Then he drove the SUV through and they stopped again to replace it.

  Would it stop zombies from wandering down the road?

  Nope.

  It was a nice decoy, though, and could certainly slow people down if they were looking for survivors, or if they were looking for trouble. They drove for awhile in silence. When Kyle reached the intersection where he’d normally turn toward Raven, he went the opposite direction.

  “About time,” Torrance leaned back in her seat. She shifted around, searching for something. Then she produced a music CD and popped it in and turned the volume up.

  “Should we be worried about the sound attracting any Infected?” Kyle asked.

  “Fuck that.”

  It was good enough for Kyle. He leaned back in his seat and Torrance sang along with the album. It was music he’d never heard before, but he didn’t care because it was fucking music.

  They passed a couple of empty fields with farmhouses at the backs. He peered as he drove, but there were no signs of life out here.

  Nothing.

  “How far do you think this thing goes?” He asked.

  “All the way. If anyone wasn’t infected, we’d have electricity by now.”

  “Maybe the cities have it.”

  “Doubt it.”

  He kept driving. He slowed as he approached a sign with two arrows. They could go straight ahead toward Hawkville or turn right to head toward Eagleton.

  “What’s with the fucking bird names around here?”

  “Stupid, right?”

  “Any preferences?”

  “Let’s go to Hawkville,” she said. “I used to date a guy from there. He said it was nice.”

  “You’ve never been?”

  “Never.”

  He glanced over at her. Torrance was leaning back in her seat. She looked comfortable and at ease as she stared straight ahead at the empty road.

  “How is that possible?” He asked. “You’ve lived in Raven a long time.”

  She shrugged. “You get busy, you know. Life gets busy. Well, it did. It was easy to think, hey, I can go to Hawkville anytime I want. Only, I didn’t. Do you have anything like that in your life?”

  “Any regrets, you mean?”

  “Yeah.”

  “There were places I want to go,” he admitted. “I should have.”

  “Well, now we can basically go anywhere we want,” she said, motioning to the road. “We’ve got nothing but time.”

  “True,” he said. “We do not, however, have unlimited gas.” He pointed at the tank. It was half-full, which was enough to get them to Hawkville and back, he thought.

  “Well, a one day adventure is still an adventure.”

  They drove for twenty minutes before they spotted a building that wasn’t an off-in-the-distance farmhouse. Kyle slowed as he saw a building up ahead. It was a small gas station, or it had been, at one time. Now it was run down, forgotten. It had obviously been abandoned long before the zombie apocalypse happened.

  “What do you think?” Torrance asked. “Wanna kill some motherfuckers?” There were at least two Infected walking around, and Kyle was itching for some action.

  He looked over at Torrance and smiled.

  This was where he wanted to be.

  She was who he wanted to be with.

  “Yeah,” he said. “Let’s kill some zombies.”

  Chapter 4

  She hopped out of the SUV before Kyle had even shut it off and started firing. Maybe it was wasting bullets, but she didn’t care. Torrance was angry at the world and she was tired of everything. She wanted to feel powerful, even if it was just for a little while.

  So she aimed and fired.

  Aimed and fired.

  The Infected she was shooting at turned toward her, but seemed unaffected by her bullets. She was rusty. That was fine. She had more ammo and all the time in the world. She shot again and again, finally landing a headshot. The Infected fell loudly to the pavement.

  “Nicely done,” Kyle said, coming up beside her. The other Infected was wandering toward them and he raised his own gun and shot. He took only two bullets to knock the fucker down.

  “You too,” she said. “Shall we see if there are more?”

  “In a second,” he said. “Cover me.”

  He stepped forward and started checking the pockets of the Infected they’d killed. He pulled out some cash, some keys, and a small plastic baggie.

  “What did you find?” She asked when he came over. He held it up and smiled.

  “It’s our lucky day,” he said, tossing it to her.

  Torrance took the little bag and started laughing when she realized what it was.

  “Weed?” She laughed.

  “I make no promises as to the quality,” Kyle said.

  “Doesn’t matter,” she told him. “Have you ever smoked before?”

  “Long time ago.”

  “No worries,” she said. “We just
need some paper and a lighter.”

  “Let’s wait until we get back,” Kyle said.

  “Yeah,” Torrance pocketed the drugs. “We don’t need to be high out in the wild.”

  “It’s not exactly the wild.”

  “It sort of is, Kyle. Seriously, though, we don’t need to be high around zombies. I don’t know about you, but I get super mellow when I’m high.”

  “You mean you don’t want to be wielding a weapon while you’re super baked?” He winked at her and headed toward the little run-down building. It hadn’t been a gas station for a long time. The pumps were so old they didn’t even have credit card options. The building was definitely some sort of hang-out, though. There were a couple of cars in the parking lot and Torrance counted three zombies pawing at the windows inside the building.

  “What about these guys?” She jerked her head toward them.

  “They’re all yours, if you want ‘em.”

  She did.

  She thought about shooting the glass, but wasn’t sure if the panes would shatter. There was no hospital nearby. There was no one to call for help if something went horribly wrong, so she simply went to the door and yanked it open.

  “Don’t get too brave,” Kyle called out.

  “Don’t worry, I’m not.”

  She backed up quickly as the Infected immediately started coming out of the building. Some of them were slow, but a couple of them practically sprinted at her. She stepped backwards as she shot.

  Bang.

  Bang.

  Bang.

  This was what her life had come down to, but at this moment, Torrance didn’t give a fuck. She was powerful here: queen of the damn gas station.

  Bang.

  An Infected fell.

  Bang.

  Another one jerked back, but kept walking.

  Bang.

  He hit the pavement.

  Then another.

  Then another.

  By the time she finished, Torrance had only two bullets left and nine bodies littered the parking lot. Kyle watched silently as she killed them, but didn’t intervene. She appreciated that. She didn’t need him judging her or trying to save her.

  There was a time and a place to be rescued.

  This wasn’t it.

  He moved over and started checking pockets. Torrance followed suit. Between the two of them, they came up with $452.47, six sets of keys, another two baggies of weed, and several unidentifiable pills.

  “Could be ecstasy,” Kyle said.

  “It’s not. I don’t know what it is.” He didn’t ask her how she knew what E looked like. She’d never done it, but her roommate out of high school had. These were different. Maybe they were something innocuous, like heart medication. She tossed them aside. They didn’t need that crap.

  Kyle watched the tiny pills hit the pavement, but he only shrugged.

  “Let’s go inside,” he said. “Maybe there will be something good.

  “Anything in particular you’re craving?”

  “Something that doesn’t taste like it came from a can,” he said. They went into the dark gas station. She had a flashlight and flicked it on. Torrance swung it from side-to-side. There were shelves filling the place. Most of them looked full.

  “Guess the Infected didn’t get too hungry,” she said, walking down the candy aisle. Kyle went up front to the register and grabbed a couple of bags. He came back and tossed one to her.

  “Fill up,” he said. “Just don’t grab anything with blood on it.”

  Aside from the shelves by the front windows, the rest of the gas station appeared weirdly undisturbed. Those shelves up front were bloody and some of them appeared to still be wet. Maybe it was mucous or some other bodily excretion Torrance didn’t want to know about. She focused on the clean shelves and quickly filled her bag.

  “What’d you find?” She asked Kyle. He’d gone to a different aisle.

  “Bandages, pain meds, tweezers.”

  “Going to do some eyebrow tweezing?”

  “You never know,” he shrugged. He went up front and grabbed several boxes of cigarettes and shoved those into his bag, too.

  “You don’t smoke,” she pointed out.

  “Yeah, but other people do. They could come in handy if we need to do any trading.”

  Torrance reached for the higher-priced brands and threw those into Kyle’s bag, too, along with several lighters. They emptied the cash register, grabbed a case of beer, and headed back to the car. Once they’d loaded their findings into the backseat, they went to check out the vehicles in the parking lot.

  Most of the cars appeared to be empty, but two of them had inhabitants. Torrance turned to Kyle. He’d seemed so tense lately. Today was no exception. His shoulders were tight. Hell, all of his muscles seemed tight.

  Being hurt had been hard on him, Torrance knew. It had been hard on her, too, but Kyle had taken things very seriously. He was a fun guy, but it was important to him to be independent. Being trapped inside hadn’t been good for him.

  “Here,” she handed him several sets of keys and jerked her head toward the cars. “It’s your turn to do some damage.”

  Chapter 5

  Mark and Alice spent the day walking the perimeter again. It was getting colder each day. Snow would come soon, whether they were ready or not, so they needed to be ready. They set a couple of traps before chopping firewood for another hour. They had a steady supply, but they could always use more. When they were done, they rinsed the sweat off their bodies in the lake, careful to watch for any Infected that might be lurking nearby.

  Mark never took his eyes off the shore on the other side of the lake.

  He didn’t like the idea of being watched. Even though it had been weeks, he knew it was only a matter of time before either the smart zombie came back or before other humans discovered the lake and, in turn, the lodge. He was dreading it.

  He didn’t want to move.

  He wanted to stay here.

  They couldn’t run forever. That wasn’t reasonable and it certainly wasn’t viable, but he knew he was going to have to make some hard choices when it came to keeping everyone safe. He already had.

  He’d already killed more people than he’d ever thought possible. Zombie or not, he was a murderer now, and that was something he’d live with.

  When Alice was done rinsing, they dried with towels, pulled on their clean clothes, and went back to the lodge. They locked the place up for the night, started a fire, and ate dinner together in silence.

  Finally, Alice spoke.

  “Do you think they’re okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I wonder if their legs still hurt.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Torrance hasn’t been away in a long time.”

  “She hasn’t been away ever, really,” Mark pointed out. “Not since she and Kyle found this place.”

  “He’s smart,” Alice said hopefully. “He’ll figure out a way to keep them safe and alive.”

  “Of course he will.”

  Mark hoped, too, that Kyle would come back with supplies. They had all the firewood in the world, but they could use extra food and other things that would help keep them comfortable in the winter. Boredom was as much of a problem as starvation when it came to surviving zombies. Alice had been spending a lot of time drawing and Mark had tried to read books from before the apocalypse, but even the mysteries had such a hopeful spirit that he found himself growing restless.

  He didn’t want to read stories about when things were perfect.

  He didn’t want a book that had a happy ending.

  He didn’t need plot points wrapped up neatly in a pretty little bow.

  He wanted something real, something truthful. He wanted something he could relate to before he felt like he was going crazy.

  After dinner, they rinsed the plates in a bucket of water they kept in the kitchen. Then Alice and Mark went upstairs to bed. Long after Alice fell asleep, he lay in the darkness thinking abou
t what their next move would be.

  They had stuff.

  Now they needed skills.

  Chapter 6

  “Let’s start running,” Mark said the next morning.

  “Running?”

  “I haven’t worked out for real in a long time. Running is easy and it doesn’t require any equipment.”

  “It’s not a bad idea,” Alice said. She sipped her water bottle and looked over at Mark. “Let’s start now.”

  They finished breakfast, tidied up the lodge, and dressed. Then they took off down the road. Each time Alice’s feet hit the road, she felt like she was going to die. She hadn’t run in awhile, either, except to escape from the monsters that filled the area, and she was ready for something like this.

  She liked painting and drawing and reading, but this was something physical they could do that would actually help. This actually mattered. This would actually give them a chance at survival.

  When they were near the Infected, Alice always looked for an escape. She knew Mark did, too. It was the same reason veterans never sat with their backs to a door. You always needed to be able to see how you were going to get away if danger struck. You needed to know how you were going to deal with a threat.

  Running was a skill she had never really developed, though. Building endurance was something that would help them in the end. If they found themselves in a situation where they just couldn’t fight their way out, running would ensure their survival.

  It would be nice to have an iPod or some music, but they didn’t have that, so Mark and Alice ran. They ran until their bodies were dripping with sweat. Then they ran a little bit more. By the time they stopped to have a drink and rest, Alice’s feet were sore and her stomach hurt.

  “How are you doing?” Mark asked.

  She smirked and shook her head.

  “It’s harder than it looks. I’ll give you that.”

  He laughed, and that made her happy. Mark didn’t laugh much anymore. Not that he had laughed much before. Things were different now and life was so much more serious. It was good to see him smiling, even if it was just for a moment.

  “It’ll get easier,” he told her.

  “I’m sure it will. Practice makes perfect, right?”