Waiting to Die ~ A Zombie Novel

by Cochran, Richard M.

  Emma places the cubed potatoes onto a plate and brings them over to the stove. A light, earthy smell wafts up from the plate and makes her mouth water.

  “Very good,” he says, looking at the perfectly cubed vegetable. “You’re going to be a great cook one day.”

  The girl smiles and sits at the island in the middle of the kitchen.

  “After we’ve eaten, I need you to get the spare first aid kit from upstairs,” he says. “We’ll also have to bring some clothes with us on this trip and some extra food.”

  “Okay, grandpa,” she replies. “Should I bring Benny with?” She fidgets with her bear on the counter next to her.

  “No,” Jacob chuckles. “He’d be better off here guarding the house while we’re gone. We’ll save taking him until we go for good, I’m sure he’ll come in handy with as good of a shot as he is.”

  Emma laughs, “You’re silly, grandpa.”

  “It’s not silly, he really is a fine shot,” he says with a wink. “Who do you think taught me?”

  Emma’s eyes go wide. “Really?” she asks.

  He shakes his head with a grin. “No, not really,” he admits.

  She purses her lips. “You are too silly.”

  It hurts his heart to think that he won’t be around when Emma is old enough to be on her own. If he closes his eyes and imagines, he can see her as a young woman, fending for herself. He hopes that her dream was prophesy. He prays every night that she will be able to take care of herself when he’s gone. With everything he has, he prays the night away until exhaustion finally forces him to sleep.

  After breakfast, Jacob quietly toils away, packing up the cart in the back yard. He fits in the extra clothes and the first aid kit along with a crate of mason jars filled with vegetables he canned from the garden. Before they’re ready to leave, he checks his service pistol and re-secures the clip after he’s made sure it is loaded. He oils the silencer and returns it to the barrel with a few, quick twists. If he had known that he would be using it so many years after the war, he would have taken better care of it, but the Colt is still responsive and as accurate as it had always been and he’s glad he smuggled it back to the States when he was discharged.

  He places the pistol in the holster under his arm and puts his jacket on to keep the cool ocean breeze off his back. He stares at the girl as she fidgets with her rifle, securing the potato on the end like he had taught her. It was one of the few tricks he remembered from when he was a boy. With a few holes drilled into the side, the vegetable could be placed at the end of a gun and would quiet the report when it was shot. He used the trick when he hunted squirrels in his youth as to not scare away any others that were within ear shot. It worked well enough and kept the dead from becoming frenzied over the sound of gunshots.

  He tucks a few bottles into the cart. They’re half full of yellowed liquid and have a long strip of cloth hanging from their openings. Finally, he checks for the lighter in his pocket and is happy when he feels the protrusion.

  “Are you ready?” he asks.

  Emma peers up through the scarf that is secured over her face, making her look more like a Middle Eastern refugee than a child about to walk amongst the dead. “Yes,” she replies through the perfume that saturates it, effectively keeping the smell of rot from outside away.

  “Okay, now,” he begins, “do you remember what I told you?”

  “Don’t shoot unless they are getting too close,” she replies.

  “And?” he asks with raised brow.

  She thinks for a moment. “And always watch our back,” she states firmly.

  “Good,” he says with a quick nod and a sly grin. “We’ll move slow and quiet so as not to draw their attention. It is tempting to run, but you have to stay calm, we don’t want to attract any more attention than we have to.”

  Emma nods and tightens the scarf around her face and well out of her eyes. “Got it,” she says through the fabric that muffles her voice.

  At the side gate, Jacob peers through the crack between the fastener and watches the dead shambling along the beach. The walkway in front of the house is clear and he nods to Emma to take the lead. The child raises her rifle and places it on her shoulder as she fidgets with the lock on the gate. She looks back at her grandfather and waits for his signal.

  Jacob nods again and the child swings the gate wide and lets her grandfather pass through as she steps to the side. She pulls the cord above the gate as she closes it and fastens it to a nail for when they need to get back in.

  The well oiled wheels of the cart are soundless as they take to the sidewalk that leads toward the pier. Like the reduced image of a soldier, Emma keeps watch, leveling her rifle and peering down the barrel at the sight, keeping the dead within her gaze.

  “2 o’clock,” Jacob says.

  The girl imagines a clock and swings the rifle around in time to see corpse closing in on her right. Through the side walkway of a nearby home, the ghoul staggers and snarls as it comes closer. She corrects her sight through the brown peal at the end of the weapon, exhales and pulls the trigger. A tiny black dot appears on the creature’s forehead and its knees buckle before it falls face first to the ground. She releases the shell with a few quick flicks of her wrist, clicking the bolt action and loads another round in its wake.

  She lifts the rifle and points it toward the sky as she turns around and checks the path behind her grandfather. He pushes the cart like a wheelbarrow and follows the child closely as he scans their surroundings.

  The dead remain bereft of the pair as they make their way along the beachfront, too engrossed with their own movements and shambling steps to take notice.

  “Watch the blind approach,” Jacob says as they near the walkway to the pier.

  Emma sidesteps to her right as she aims the rifle once more and gives the approach a wide berth. She taps the trigger and releases the shell as a corpse falls dead at her feet. In the quiet morning, she can almost hear the bullet ricochet inside the creature’s skull as she loads another round.

  “Not much farther now,” Jacob says. “Make sure you mind the gate.”

  Emma scurries to the fence that sanctions off the dock from the boathouse and pulls the clasp upward once the pin is removed. She swings the gate wide to allow her grandfather enough room to move through and clasps it shut behind her.

  “We’re getting pretty good at this,” the old man comments, pushing the cart along as it bounces over the sections of deck. He sets the cart down and lifts a section of ramp from the dock and pushes it into place over the gap of water between the boat and the deck. “Give me a hand with this,” he adds.

  The child comes to his side and helps him push the cart aboard. They quickly unload the supplies into the lower cabin of the boat beyond the single mast that stands triumphant over the deck. A battered flag whips in ripped sections high above, glancing off the pole in the wind that blows cool from the ocean.

  “All right,” he says, “now all we have to do is make it back home.”

  ·9

  Each day fades into the next as April stares through the window, out into oblivion. It has been weeks since they have seen another living soul.

  In a rush, a car plows into the horde of bodies out in front of the apartment building in the early morning hours. The blurry outline of a man graces the driver’s seat. His eyes focus through as he stares, unabashed at the straggling bodies. It is as if he were unaware of the tires beginning to slip on blood slick streets. Within seconds, he is pulled from the car through broken windows. He yelps through frenzied laughter as the dead begin to devour him, rip him into pieces and fight over the scraps.

  Johnny lowers his head at the scene. It is as if he were in silent prayer as he walks away from the window when the last screams of the victims are heard.

  “We have to do a running count of our supplies,” he says offhandedly.

  “But, Johnny…” April begins to protest.

  “But what?!” he shouts.

  �
�What about the…” she stutters as she points through the window.

  “What about them?” he snaps at her. “They’re fucking dead. Just like every other goddamn thing out there, they’re fucking dead,” he says as he turns away to the kitchen.

  “But, Johnny, the car,” she tries to reason with him.

  “Are you fucking stupid?” he asks. “And how are we going to get to it? I know, maybe we can wade through a couple thousand corpses. I’m sure they’re polite, being as they’ve just ate.”

  “Johnny,” she whispers.

  He holds up his hands, “Fuck it! Let’s just get a count of the food we have left.”

  The tension in the air is thick as Johnny slams the cans of food on the counter. He’s tired of wishing, tired of hoping that the next helicopter that flies over will see the sign on the side of the building, tired of praying to a God that refuses to answer. In the pit of his stomach, he knows what’s going to happen. He’s all too aware of the facts. When the food runs out, he’s going to starve to death with the woman he loves. Maybe then the chopper will land on the roof and discover them reanimated and finally put them out of their misery.

  “Chopper,” he laughs under his breath. “We haven’t seen one of those in over a week.”

  April remains silent on one of the recliners in the living room, staring at a blank television screen. She imagines the power coming back on and the reporters updating that the dead are beginning to fall like dead things are supposed to do. She imagines looking out through the window and seeing the thousands of corpses heaped up into neat piles as soldiers with flamethrowers go about incinerating the aftermath. She smiles to herself when she thinks of this, letting the feeling surge over her, allowing hope to grow, allowing herself a reprieve from the sorrow that has taken her to the edge.

  She thinks of all the things that will happen now that the population has declined. They’ll need nurses and firemen. They’ll need people to farm, and people to make fabrics to clothe the survivors.

  In a moment of dreamlike clarity, she can see Johnny tilling the fields while she tends to the livestock. Their home is neat and tidy, not a single empty food can is left out to spoil. In fact, they no longer eat anything from cans. All of their food comes from the farm. Every morsel is fresh and made by loving and attentive hands.

  Their children are plump and happy, out on the dirt road, waiting for the school bus. They have cheery faces as they play, ripe red cheeks glow from smiling so much. Their little backpacks hang from their shoulders and they laugh as they tease one another.

  She sees them after they come home from school, fussing because they have to do chores. They have to help their father fertilize the fields and pick the crops and turn down the hay. They have to work until the sun begins to fade away into night and then they can sit by the fire and tell stories of how the world went crazy one day and the dead began to rise and feast upon the living.

  “But what happened to all the bodies, Mommy?” Johnny Jr. asks.

  “That’s what we use to fertilize the fields,” she replies.

  As winter descends, Johnny scavenges the last of the food from the other apartments in the building. Water is getting harder to come by and he has set up a few containers on the fire escape to gather rain from the gutters. In the fire pit on the roof, he boils and filters it through charcoal strainers until it is drinkable.

  He can’t bring himself to tell April that they only have a few weeks worth of food left if they ration themselves down to one meal a day. She has already shown signs of malnourishment and he doesn’t think she’ll be able to handle cutting down her food any more than she already has.

  Slowly, he lifts his t-shirt up and pulls it over his ribs. The muscle is all but gone now and he can see nothing more than a concave where his stomach used to be.

  He scratches the thick growth of beard on his face. “It won’t be much longer now,” he says as he peers out at the bodies that stretch out as far as he can see through the streets and the train yard in the back.

  Closer to the edge of the roof, he stares down at the yellow grass, untended and withered like the dead at the other side of the fence. He smiles to himself when he thinks about jumping and wonders if a three story fall would be enough to kill him. He often ponders this as the reality of starving to death slowly eats away at him. Sadly, he knows it will be April who dies first and he can’t imagine having to kill her when she comes back. The thought is torture. It eats away at his mind with sickening efficiency.

  He turns and walks to the other side of the roof. He places the tips of his toes on the edge and looks down at the sidewalk that connects the front of the building to the small, untended yard in back. He inches a little closer, letting his heels rest as he sways with his eyes closed.

  “What are you doing?” April asks.

  He turns slowly, “Just looking at the edge of the world.”

  “Well get away from there before you fall.” She frowns.

  He steps off the edge and back down onto the gravel roof. “You’re probably right,” he replies.

  “Hey, what’s that over there?” April asks, pointing past the next building over at a fence line, barely visible from the rooftop.

  “I think it’s the storm drain that feeds into the ocean,” he answers.

  “So it’s a canal?” she asks.

  “Yeah, pretty much,” he says. “It takes all the storm water from the mountains and the sewer drains in the low lying cities and filters it off so they don’t flood.”

  “Is it fenced in like that all the way?”

  “I think so,” he replies. “They kind of have to so people don’t go messing around and get washed away when it rains. You wouldn’t believe how many people used to do that kind of shit… back before.”

  “Christ, Johnny, that’s our way out,” she says as her face erupts into a smile.

  “It’s almost a block away.” He shakes his head. “We’d never make it. They’d catch us before we could climb the fence.”

  “Sure we would,” she counters. “Look there.” She points at the buildings. “All of those apartments are so close together I bet we could find something on the rooftops to bridge the gap.”

  “How are we going to get out of this apartment?”

  “We’ll climb that tree, it touches the other building.” She guides her finger in the air, outlining a lip on the side of the building. “We could climb up there and we’re on the roof.”

  “Do you realize how dangerous that would be?”

  “It’s better than waiting here to starve to death, isn’t it?”

  He stares at her. “You know about the food problem?”

  “How couldn’t I?” she asks. “Unless you’re hiding it somewhere else, it looks like we have about a couple of weeks left before we’re screwed.”

  “Yeah, I didn’t want to worry you with it,” he says, ashamed. “I was trying to figure out something else before then.”

  “Have you come up with something else?” she asks, glancing down at the edge of the roof.

  “No,” he answers and looks away from her.

  “Well then, my idea doesn’t sound so bad, does it?”

  Johnny traces a path with his gaze, calculating each step. “I guess it’s possible,” he says, “but it won’t be easy.”

  “Anything’s better than what we have here,” she says. “We’ll eat as much food as we can over the next few days and get our strength up. Then we should be healthy enough to make it. If all else fails, at least we tried.”

  “We won’t be able to take much with us anyway,” he adds. “That’s going to be a hell of a lot of climbing. I hope you’re up for it.”

  “I’m willing if you are.”

  Johnny draws in a notebook he found in one of the other apartments, sketching out different plans as he tries to figure out the best way to initiate their escape.

  “We won’t know what we’re in for until we’ve cleared the next building, but I figure we should be able to use
a ladder I spotted with the binoculars on the roof to get over to the final one,” he explains. “I’m not sure how we’re going to get into the canal though. It looks like there’s a block wall surrounding that last complex.”

  “Won’t the ladder be awful shaky if we extend it over to the last set of apartments?”

  “Yeah, it will,” he agrees. “We’re going to have to be extra careful. One slip up and we’re done, you know?”

  April nods as she takes a half of a peach from the can she’s holding and slurps up the juice. “I’m pretty sure we’re going to have to be careful whatever we do from here on out. It’s not like those things are going to give us a break.”

  The sound of thunder rumbles in the distance. Johnny can feel the vibrations and removes his earplugs to get a better listen. Static electricity is in the air, making the hairs on his arm stand on end. He can smell the ozone as the next lightning strike hits, followed by a deep, ground shaking rumble.

  He nudges April’s shoulder and wakes her.

  “What’s going on?” she asks, groggy from sleep.

  “There’s a storm coming,” he says.

  A crash of lightning flashes, lighting up the bedroom.

  “Oh, wow!” April exclaims as she rises from the bed.

  Like a train, the thunder rumbles a few seconds later, shaking the apartment. Johnny gets up and follows April to the window.

  “Look at that,” he says, watching the dead. “It’s got them all riled up.”

  “They’re afraid of the storm?” she asks.

  “I don’t know, but this might be our chance,” he says as he watches them scatter away from the fence in the train yard.

  “Right now?!” she asks.

  “Right now,” he confirms.

  With their packs over their shoulders, they take to the stairs and out through the back door that leads into the yard. The first few sprinkles of rain begin to fall as they make their way through to the back of the property, crouching low as not to be spotted.