Waiting to Die ~ A Zombie Novel

by Cochran, Richard M.

  “Go right,” Johnny replies offhandedly, not truly knowing which way to go.

  “Are you sure?”

  “No, but I think if we keep going straight, we'll run into a wall.”

  April bites her bottom lip, trying to hold back her frustration. “There's no need to be an ass.”

  “Can we do this later? I really don't want to get into a pissing match with you while a few hundred dead fuckers are trying to pop the top of this fucking vent like of can of tuna.” He angrily makes his point.

  Without another word, April changes direction and veers off to the right, pulling herself over a ventilation grate. Bodies wander aimlessly below, oblivious to the duo above them. April holds back a gasp as one of the creatures looks up at the grate, but doesn't seem to be able to see through to the other side. Ragged flaps of skin hang precariously from the corpse’s jaw like lengths of rope haphazardly thrown off the bow of a ship; dangling and thick with clotted blood. The white of its eyes stare for only a moment before it shambles off, out of view, distracted by a noise that is coming from inside the office. April exhales slowly through her nose and continues to move pass the grate as her hands shake.

  Johnny moves carefully along the ventilation screen, his gaze intently focused on the path ahead. He has seen so many of the dead that he doesn't bother to look down at the images of what he fears will one day be his fate. The creatures bring everything into perspective; you live, you get bit and die, you return to life and feed upon the living. It was the circle of life, death and reanimation. There wasn’t an escape from the inevitable.

  “April,” he whispers as he gently taps her leg.

  She stops and turns. “What is it?”

  “If you happen to see an empty room through one of the grates, let me know.”

  Raising her eyebrows in empathy, April simply nods her head.

  The silence inside the vent is unnerving, but it is when the dead wail that the tight confines become insufferable. Long rasping moans echo, reverberate through the duct work, hollow and forlorn as if the pain of death is saved for the sorrow of starvation and yearning. When April listens, she can feel their disease, their angst and tribulation. The suffering of the dead pulls at her heartstrings in such a way that she wishes she could personally end their misery, release them from the moving death that grips their miserable souls. April's compassion wells deep inside every time she hears their pleas, forcing her to consider all that she has lost, all of the poor and helpless dead that she has left behind. Most of all, the creatures make her remember the people she loved, the ones who fell and she was never able to save.

  April slips, dislodging the vent cover. It twirls downward, spiraling like a coin, landing hard upon the tile floor with a loud clank before fluttering to a silent halt. Her heart skips a beat as she stares at the cover far below. Behind her, Johnny stops and tenses from the noise, waiting for the hungry voices of the dead to rise up through the vent. An intense silence follows as they both wait for the inevitable.

  Throughout his body, Johnny can hear every vessel, every vein stop in a momentary reprieve and then continue to surge within his stricken frame as he waits.

  “It’s empty,” April says at last.

  Johnny lets out a deep breath, “Thank God.” He huddles in behind April and whispers, “Can you get down?”

  “I think so. There are rows of tables I think I can get a footing on,” she says, mapping out the room. “It looks like a computer lab.”

  “All right, I'll help you lower yourself down. Grab my hand.”

  Johnny braces his legs against the inside of the vent and doubles his hands over April's, grasping her wrists.

  April's jaw tightens from the pain. “Be careful, my shoulder is still sore.”

  “Sorry,” he replies and lowers her down slowly.

  April makes contact with the table and knocks over an old computer monitor as she tries to find something that will support her weight. The screen hits the floor with a crash and a faint hiss as the gas escapes before it skids a few feet and finally comes to a rest. She balances herself on the tabletop and jumps down to the floor. Favoring her sprained ankle, she limps around until the pain subsides before scanning the room. She makes sure it is clear as Johnny follows, bends his knees, and lands gracefully on the floor.

  A body leans lifelessly against the wall at the far corner of the room, disregarded like a child's doll. Maggots crawl from the cadaver’s mouth as its head drops slowly as if it were deflating.

  April recoils from the rotten visage and is immediately struck by the sickening smell. The odor is rancid with decomposition, sickeningly sweet, reeking like bile and piss. She turns her head in disgust and covers her nose in a futile attempt to keep the odor away. “Goddamn it,” she says and turns toward Johnny, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

  Johnny stares through the dimly lit room and his jaw drops as he becomes aware of the body. Slowly, the ghoul raises its head like a marionette, poised by an unknown force tugging at its strings. A scowl spreads across its dry, cracked lips, exposing jagged, broken teeth protruding from dark gums. A flatulent rasp escapes it maw. Indented sockets open in a flash, revealing cloudy eyes framed in a bloodshot haze like a dinner plate immersed in plasma. Bugs crawl from its mouth as it begins to move its jaw.

  Confused by Johnny's expression, April turns her head and follows his gaze. She steps back, nearly falling as fright overtakes her. Laggardly ascending, the ghoulish creature bends in on itself for leverage as it begins to rise, unsteady, but determined. Awkwardly, it moves its legs. With its feet dragging, the corpse settles its weight upon stiff limbs and moves in, driven by the hunger it has tried to quench for so long.

  The monstrosity lurches forward. Wet slaps hit the tile as it moves stiffly toward the couple; its torso sways from side to side with every step. Johnny hauls a computer monitor from atop the nearest table and launches himself at the creature, wielding the device as a weapon above his head. He swings wide and brings it down into the side of the corpses head. Between the whooshes of an imploding screen, there is a loud snap as the ghoul’s neck breaks. Its head hangs to the side at an unnaturally angle as its spine penetrates through rotten flesh, releasing scraps of gore that project out and splash against the floor behind it. The corpse falls in a heap and the impact sends maggots from its collapsed skull. Fragments scurry across the floor and lay at April's feet.

  April recoils back with an uncoordinated limp and tries to put distance between her and the wiggling larva that squirm across the tile. A sickness wells up inside her and she dry heaves, drawing thick saliva that flows from the edges of her mouth. Her eyes begin to water as the convulsions subside. Tumbling backward, faint, April's body becomes slack like a body ending its struggle, caught in a wave, gently subsiding to the current of a receding tide. Johnny catches her as she leans back and grabs her under her arms before she can hit the ground.

  “It's okay, he's dead.” Johnny tries to reassure her.

  “It isn't the dead that bothers me,” she says, swooning. “It's what's left behind that freaks me out.” She wipes away the bitter bile from her mouth and leans back in Johnny's chest.

  He steadies her until she regains her strength. “It’s gone now,” he says. “Just breathe.”

  Her face is flush as she tries to regain her composure. She fights the building nausea and spits away the film from her mouth. “I think I’ll be okay,” she says. “Let’s just get out of here.” She steadies herself against the wall and closes her eyes, making the spinning go away.

  From the window in the office door, Johnny positions himself against the door frame to get a better look at the hallway beyond. “It looks clear,” he says, peering past the dislodged overhead lighting that hangs from the ceiling, “but it’s like a warzone out there.”

  Johnny tries the knob, turning it slowly to minimize the noise. The door opens easily and without a sound. Stagnant air greets his senses as the pressure changes, letting a dank smell of mildew into the
room. April follows closely behind him as he makes his way out into the hallway. Soft, dusty carpet silences their footfalls as they leave, creeping closely to the wall for fear of being spotted. Splatters of dried blood pepper the wall, giving way to portions of missing drywall which April diverts her eyes from, for fear of getting too vivid of an image.

  Around the next corner, Johnny spots an open door that has been pushed inward across the adjacent hallway of the intersection. He waits and listens. The building creaks in return, as if moaning out its displeasure at being vacant and unmaintained. These are the moments where he would stop his heart from beating if he could, just to be able to listen clearly, just to hear the dead before they know he’s there.

  Moving across the hall, Johnny crosses the intersection and places his back against the wall before he peers in. He inches his head through the doorframe and into the room. Furniture lies in shambles, torn and broken, strewn along the floor from whatever mayhem may have ensued. He motions to April, waves her in and moves passed the doorway. “It's empty,” he says in a reassuring tone.

  Ahead, a door moves, swinging before it slams shut. Johnny pushes April back, holding her by the shoulder before he goes to investigate. In a single movement, he removes the pry bar from the side pocket of his pack while keeping his gaze on the door.

  Slam!

  The door flies open and thrashes against the wall as if it were thrown from its hinges. Johnny jumps at the sudden sound and backs away to regain his courage. Once he musters up the willpower, he moves closer and looks beyond the door to a stairwell. The door has been broken inward; a massive footprint stains it, old and indented into splintered wood. He can hear the wind whistle, moan through the stairwell, catching the hint of decay from outside and bringing it into his burning nose. He flinches from the smell and covers the lower portion of his face with his shirt. He pushes the door open and peers through.

  Instantly becoming sick, he holds back the urge to wretch. Countless bodies line the stairs. Haggard, disheveled cadavers lay in the last throws of death. Dry and rotten, the bodies are stacked in piles. The window at the first landing is broken out, letting the elements in to finish off the task nature has set to eradicate the dead. Swarms of flies buzz around the corpses, feasting and propagating in every husk, adding to the larva that finish of the remnants of rot.

  “My…” she manages to say over Johnny's shoulder before feeling the sickness rise in her stomach. She swallows the urge to throw up again and clenches her jaw. “It was a massacre,” she says, turning her gaze away from the sickening scene.

  “And we have to go through it,” Johnny replies as his shirt falls from his face, ushered by his slack expression.

  “There has to be another way.”

  “Well we could go back up to the roof and try for the rope again if you’re willing to run past a few dozen corpses,” he replies, looking down at her ankle.

  “I fucking get it. I'm a liability. You don't need to remind me.” She scowls.

  “That's not what I was getting at,” he says. “Calm down, it was just a joke.”

  “But that's what you were thinking, right?” she says, coming within inches of his face. “Would you leave me the way you left Sarah?”

  Stepping back, Johnny turns away, shocked. “Listen. I've only done what I've had to do. I didn't want to leave her behind...”

  “But you did it anyway. She was only a little girl. She didn't have any way to defend herself from those... things,” her voice quivers.

  “She was already dead, April! She was fucking bit. Would you rather I clubbed her to death? Is that what you would have wanted?!”

  “You know damn well what I wanted.” she spits out between clenched teeth.

  “That wasn't a fucking option. If we had waited there any longer, the dead would have been right up our asses,” Johnny takes a deep breath and tries to calm himself. “I loved Sarah too, but we didn't have a choice. It was either leaving her there to die, or kill her ourselves. You saw those bites; it was only a matter of time before...”

  “And now she is one of those fucking things out there,” April points, motioning outside, “dead and wandering, no different than all the other sacks of shit.”

  “Goddamn it, I tried,” Johnny shakes his head. “I really tried. How was I supposed to know those things were out back? We had to run,” his voice shakes. “We had to.”

  “I...” she trails off at the thought, scrunching her face up at the edge of tears.

  The intensity of his expression subsides as he watches the first tear escape the corner of her eye. “I'm sorry,” he says. “If there had been any other way, anything at all, you know I would have...”

  April hangs her head in sorrow before finally looking up at Johnny. Tears stream down her face and she replies through sobbing breaths, “I know... I just feel so guilty.”

  “I do too, but right now we have to think of ourselves.” Johnny looks down at the floor in thought and closes his eyes. “That's what this all comes down to. We either survive, or we wait here to die.” He motions toward the stairs. “And right now, this is all we can do.”

  Johnny carefully steps over bodies, negotiating through broken limbs and torn flesh as he descends the stairs. He tiptoes over the dried blood and through the insects that scurry from one corpse to the other and holds tightly to the railing as his knuckles whiten from his grip.

  Tight mouths are opened wide from decay as if the dead are screaming out their final pleas. Their faces never become mundane, never seem to lose the impression of horror, no matter how many Johnny has seen. He imagines what their lives were like; the picnics they must have attended, the birthday parties and other social gatherings they've gone to. It is too much to bear when he really considers them as having once lived, having the same hopes and fears as himself, the same dreams, all torn away in an instant. Above everything else, he wonders why he was spared, why he should live when so many others have fallen to such a cruel fate. It is times like this when he sees the fallen, the people who never rose, who never had a chance to hunt the living that he wishes the same for himself and all of the people he has ever loved. To die and never rise would be the greatest gift of all.

  Behind him, April limps down the stairs, trying her best not to slip on the remnants of the dead, on the maggots and other filth that feed upon them. She tries to imagine herself stepping through a field of flowers, but the smell of decay quickly diminishes the fantasy and she is brought back to the hell at her feet. She holds firmly to the railing for support as she makes it to the next landing. The number of bodies begins to dwindle as she takes to the next flight of stairs as she tries to catch up with Johnny.

  “Fuck!” Johnny exclaims as he trips and falls over a body.

  At the very last moment, he twists, desperately trying to land on his back rather than his face and comes down with a terrible thud. He moans through the pain and grits his teeth. He tilts his head to the left and opens his eyes, confronted by the rotten visage of a bloated corpse. Instantly, the smell overwhelms him. Wrinkling his nose, he turns and covers his mouth, fearing another round of vomiting.

  “Are you alright?” April asks, kneeling down by his side.

  He sits up with a disgusted look and tries to shake the pain in his side. “I'll be fine. Give me a second.”

  ·12

  Upon the next landing, they make their way over the last few bodies and move beyond another broken out window. Rain pelts them through the broken out pane, driven by the furious winds that have accompanied the storm. Lightning snaps through the sky, electrifying clouds that drift like dirty cotton outside the window. It is as if April could reach out and touch them, feel the wetness of the storm with the vapors that make up their gloom. Her face tingles as the spray hits her face, activating senses that she hasn't felt in a long time. The dirt and grime rinse away as she wipes her face on the sleeve of her shirt.

  “Come on, let's go,” Johnny urges.

  April turns to Johnny, “I w
as just...”

  “I know,” Johnny empathizes. “There's no time.”

  As Johnny takes the next flight of stairs, April looks back, dreaming for only a moment before following him again. She shakes the fancy from her mind with a sigh. She can't help but to think of being clean, of washing herself in the downpour, of feeling fresh if only for a fleeting moment. Her heart aches for the way the world once was.

  “Damn it!” Johnny's anger rises. “It's locked,” he says as he pushes on the door.

  Slamming his hands on the door, he reserves himself to resting his forehead on the obstruction. He takes a deep breath and turns without a word and begins making his way to the next set of stairs. In his mind’s eye, he can remember this place from before, how it bustled with people running through their lives trying to make it to their next appointment. He can envision how each new client walked through the door of his office, sad and forlorn, only wanting to get out of the debt they had accumulated from years of living off of credit cards. The amount of burden was often times beyond his level of number crunching. More often than not, he would recommend bankruptcy and watch their faces slacken in disbelief.

  He was intent on getting to the cafeteria that he had spent so many hours, year after year, wasting time on undercooked food and the poorest quality meals that came out of a can. Having rationed their food supply to the point of near starvation, he felt it fitting to have one more meal and a place to sleep for the night before continuing to the dock; that is if the food hadn't already been looted. If he had known that there were so many of the dead waiting, he wouldn't have bothered signing his death warrant by coming here.

  After finding every entry point locked on the way down, Johnny falls against the wall at the first floor access and lowers himself down until he is sitting on the dirty floor. “I'm so sorry,” he says and holds his head in his hands.

  “There's still another floor,” April replies, lowering herself down on bended knee next to him.