Waiting to Die ~ A Zombie Novel

by Cochran, Richard M.

  Johnny sees something in the child’s eyes, a type of excitement he hasn’t seen from someone in a long time. He envies her innocence, her sense of hope, the courage to go on in the face of everything that has happened.

  Once Emma is out of earshot, Johnny looks to Greg. “You know,” he begins, “I’m not sure what it is about that kid, but she makes me feel like everything is going to be all right.”

  “Yeah,” he replies. “She’s a trooper. If I could have just a little of whatever it is that she’s got, I probably wouldn’t be as scared as I am to leave.”

  Johnny nods in agreement.

  “Don’t let her fool you,” Scarlet adds. “She’s still a little girl. I’ve heard her sob herself to sleep at night. As strong as she is, she still needs us as much as we need her.”

  “Then she can sure put on a good act,” Johnny says.

  “But that’s all it is, just an act. Deep down, she’s as frightened as the rest of us. Some day she’s going to need us for support when it all comes to a head,” Scarlet says. “I just hope we’re there to help her.”

  Greg shakes his head in thought. “What’s it going to be like for those kids when they grow up? I mean, nothing that we knew will be around for them when they get older. All they’ll ever have are the images of the dead coming back to life and the loss of the people who loved them.”

  “That’s exactly my point,” Scarlet replies. “We’re as important to them as they are to us. Children give hope in otherwise hopeless situations. They need us so much and don’t even know it. So what we’re doing, we’re doing for them. We need to give them as much of a future as we can.”

  Greg runs his hands through his thinning hair. “Way to go,” he smirks. “I don’t feel any pressure at all now.”

  Scarlet pats him on the back. “You’ll do just fine, Papa Greg. You’ll do just fine.”

  Johnny laughs at the exchange. “Not to go changing the subject or anything, but when do you think we should go?”

  “Tomorrow morning would be the best,” Greg replies, “as soon as the sun rises. That way we can get the most out of the day.”

  “I agree,” Scarlet says. “We should be well beyond Vegas by tomorrow evening and maybe we can find some place to sleep for the night.”

  “Tomorrow, it is,” Johnny says.

  The truck idles on the tracks at the rear of the terminal, dust smearing across the hood and around each door handle. Greg presses the button on the end of the turn signal lever and clears two wide arches on the windshield, making the path clear in front of the vehicle.

  With intensity, he stares out, daydreaming. He watches the dead stagger across the tracks and toward the side gate, curious over the activity happening inside.

  “Should we go through them?” Greg asks aloud.

  “I don’t think they’ll be a problem,” Johnny replies. “Most of them are still up front.”

  With the engine revving and the children in the back of the king cab, Scarlet looks back at their refuge one last time before taking a seat in the middle, between Jonny and Greg. The hairs on the back of her neck stand on end as she turns her attention toward the bodies creeping along the fence.

  “They’re staring at us,” Billy mentions. “I don’t like the way they’re looking at me.

  “It’s okay, just turn away,” Scarlet says. “We’ll be around them soon enough.” She gives Greg a hopeful look.

  “Oh, yeah,” he confirms. “We’ll be…” he stammers as the dead begin to shake the fence. “Crap, just hold on.” He revs the engine and places the shifter into drive. “This is going to be a little bumpy,” he says, looking over his shoulder and backing the truck up along the tracks until the rear bumper is almost against an idly sitting train.

  “Is this going to be enough distance?” Johnny asks.

  “I sure hope so,” Greg replies. Beads of sweat form along his brow as he takes a deep breath. It is moments like these that Greg thought your life was supposed to flash before your eyes. But in the heat of the moment, all he can see is dead, leering faces and a small padlock fastened around the center of the gate.

  Focused, he hits the accelerator and grips the steering wheel tight with both hands. Behind him, the children duck into their seats and let out quiet whimpers as the truck picks up speed.

  At the point of impact, everyone ducks their heads. The truck jostles around on the tracks as bodies deflect from the bumper and hood. The sound of snapping bones and guttural moans are cut short by the force of the truck, tearing through the obstacles in its path. Bent and broken bodies glance off across the windshield, smearing fallout along their route.

  As the truck barrels along, the dead take chase, stumbling and jerking through loose gravel as they pursue in vain. A single body lurches up from in between two boxcars on diversion tracks and steps out in front of the accelerating vehicle. With a loud knock, the corpse is taken down beneath the truck. Wet thumping ensues as the cadaver is pulled along below. There’s a loud pop as the body dislodges from the undercarriage and tumbles off along the gravel.

  “I think we might have a problem,” Greg comments, holding firm to the steering wheel as the front end flops and bounces.

  “Don’t tell me…” Johnny says, tightening his mouth to reserve his frustration. “Will it hold?”

  “Yeah, it should,” Greg replies.

  “What is it?” Scarlet asks.

  “We blew a front tire,” Greg answers. “But it should be all right. We’re running on the flanges so we’ll only need the tires when we’re off the tracks.”

  “But we’re going to have to eventually get off the tracks, right?” she asks.

  “We’ll have to worry about that when the time comes,” Johnny says. “We need a little more distance from them.” He motions back to the bodies receding into the distance.

  “I want to go home,” Billy cries.

  Scarlet turns in her seat to comfort him, but before she can speak, Emma hands over her stuffed bear over.

  “Here, this will help,” Emma says. “Whenever I’m scared, he helps me to calm down. Bears are very good at that.”

  Billy wrinkles his face and takes the bear, hugging it into himself and presses tightly to the corner of the seat.

  As they get farther from the train station, the sound of the flat tire recedes and pulls itself from the rim before finally lopping down a steep grade to the right of the vehicle. Along the mountain pass, the truck shifts itself down into a lower gear and works its way up the slope.

  “I’m going to have to change that flat pretty soon,” Greg says. “Having to hold this tight to the wheel is killing my arm.”

  “Here’s as good a place as any,” Johnny replies. “We’re in a secluded enough of an area.”

  “I’ll stop once we’ve cleared the grade and are on level ground,” Greg says.

  On top of the crest, the tracks descend and finally level out as the path begins to veer off to the left around a towering mound of hillside. Greg begins to brake and stops dead center on the curve.

  With a twist of the key, he turns off the engine and exits. He scours the pickup bed in search of the jack. After a few minutes of searching, he returns to the passenger side window and knocks on the glass.

  “Need some help?” Johnny asks after rolling down the window.

  “I found the jack and the spare tire is under the chassis, but I can’t find the lug wrench.”

  “You’re kidding,” Johnny says.

  “I wish I was.”

  “How about I drive for a while and give you a break?” Johnny asks.

  “Thanks,” Greg replies. “Just make sure you keep the wheel straight. I don’t want to jump the tracks. It’s really not that bad, the flanges do most of the work, but with a flat, I’m afraid the wheel will twist and pull us off.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll keep us straight,” he says and opens the door. He glances at the blood splatters and dents along the front quarter panel on his way around to the driver’s side
. “Damn, those things did a number on the front end,” he comments.

  Bits of skin and bone trail up along the bumper and cracked grill like a makeshift meat market. Thick trails of brown extend along the hood, separating at the dents and grooves and course along the windshield.

  “Any more damage and we wouldn’t have made it,” Greg replies.

  Johnny keeps his hand nestled in the center of the steering wheel, pulling it slightly to the right as he drives. From along the pass, he can see the city below. Smoke bellows from small fires that dot across the landscape, sending thin trails up into the hazy sky. On some rooftops, handmade signs are stenciled along the peaks and across the sides of buildings, their messages blurred from distance and time. Johnny knows what they say. He’s all too familiar with their meaning. And the fact that they’re forgotten and worn only adds to the memories.

  Deep down, he knows what would have happened if he had stayed in the apartment with April. Either way, someone would have died. It was an inevitable pattern in the growing scenario of death and rot that has taken control of the world he used to know. He feels broken and battered as he considers the past. An existence among the dead has aged him beyond his years and he’s afraid of what will come next. He glances in the rearview mirror at the children sleeping in the back and hopes he can hold on until they’re in safer hands.

  With the desert of California fading into the distance along a lonely stretch of highway, Scarlet watches as the dead move around a traffic jam of aged vehicles. No matter how the landscape changes, the occupants are always the same. Hundreds of bodies can be seen wandering through the mass of cars. A forlorn look graces their withering faces, smeared with blood and lackluster scowls.

  She imagines the rest of the country like this. All of the landmarks sentenced to rot along with the remainder of the husks who built them. The only sanctuary will be dilapidated buildings and a soiled infrastructure, destined to fall away with time.

  She sees movement up ahead near the train tracks. A pack of coyotes dodge and dart around a corpse who is swinging wildly at the animals. One of the animals distract the corpse while several others home in on the cadaver from behind, taking chunks of rot from its legs. With small yelps, the animals bite and nibble away at the rotten flesh until the body falls when there is nothing left to hold it up but useless bone.

  Scarlet keeps her eyes locked on the scene as the truck passes and gazes over her shoulder as the coyotes fall in around the corpse. She can’t help but to smile at the irony.

  “Do you think that’s what will finally get rid of them?” she asks Greg who is also watching the scene play out.

  He turns to her, disgusted with the feeding. “I don’t know,” he says. “I’m surprised they’re even bothering with it. Animals generally shy away from the dead. They don’t tend to mess with things that are unnatural.”

  “But maybe they are,” she replies. “Maybe they’re as natural as any other disaster that has fallen on mankind.”

  “Sorry, I can’t see them for anything but the abomination that they are.” He shakes his head. “I can’t see this as a progression of evolution.”

  “Really,” her eyes widen, “we don’t know what has happened to a lot of civilizations that have mysteriously vanished over the ages. Maybe this sheds some light on the matter.”

  “I doubt it,” he replies, shrugging off the comment. “I would think there would be some type of evidence left behind.”

  “Like what?” she asks. “Bodies eventually rot away so there wouldn’t be anything left to find. I mean, what if this is how it has ended for civilizations like the Mayans and places like Roanoke Island?”

  “I’ve heard that the Mayans had to abandon their cities because of climate change,” Greg replies. “And Roanoke was thought to be decimated by Indians.”

  “But they never found any real proof,” she counters. “I also heard a story about a little town in Connecticut called Dudleytown that mysteriously vanished.”

  “I guess, under the circumstances, anything is possible,” he says. “Hell, I wouldn’t have thought that one day I’d be running from reanimated corpses. At this point, I would believe almost anything.”

  Through the vast expanse of desert that sprawls out on either side of the tracks, leisure scenery comes into view. Cacti dot the horizon, pockmarked between sage and brush and tumbling weeds gliding along unrestrained by the hot winds that guide their path. Faint rays of heat surrender upward from the scorched ground. Cracked earth plays out along the surroundings from the floods that tore through last season.

  Bottles of water pass up from the rear, guided by small hands over the seat.

  “It’s too hot,” Emma says, wiping her hair from her eyes.

  “Does the air work?” Scarlet asks.

  “I haven’t tried it,” Greg replies, diverting his gaze from the sprawling desert. “I was trying to save on fuel.”

  “This might be a good time to find out,” she adds, wiping her brow.

  Johnny looks on apathetically, catching Greg’s attention and motions toward the children.

  “Eh, what the hell,” Greg says and rolls up his window. With a click of the dial, the air conditioning comes to life, blowing gradually cooling air into the cab. “If worse comes worst, we can always walk.”

  ·19

  From a bridge that extends over the highway, Johnny watches a corpse in the front seat of a passenger car. Bloated and writhing, the body is trapped inside, unable or unwilling to unlock the doors. Its face is a smear of rot and maggots that hang gelatinous along the protruding white of its skull and jaw. It laps its tongue out through a blackened grin, caressing it dry lips as if in anticipation. With the slightest convulsion, the cadaver leans forward and releases a mouthful of flies. The insects swarm and stir, eventually landing in groups upon the windshield.

  Johnny turns away, sick from the sight and returns to steering the truck along the curving train tracks. He glances back over his shoulder, looking at the children and Scarlet in the back. He stares as he sees the same potential in their faces, he winces when he thinks that they too could become like that.

  “We’re going to have to change that tire pretty soon,” Greg says. “It looks like the tracks lead straight into Vegas.” He moves uncomfortably in his seat. “We’ll need to find a car and hope it has a lug wrench.”

  The tracks lope up alongside the highway again, veering over the bridge and down along a slight grade before leveling out. The highway is packed, bumper to bumper with cars for as far as the eye can see. Many of the vehicles house the remnants of their former owners, gaseous and dead, reanimated and cooking in the heat of the desert sun. Noxious faces leer as the truck approaches, bumping here and there along the tracks.

  “Here’s as good a place as any,” Greg says, pointing to an abandoned cropping of vehicles. “Do you want me to guide the truck off the tracks?”

  “No, I think I’ve got it,” Johnny replies, nursing the switch to the hydraulics and releasing the flanged wheels from the track.

  The truck bumps heavy onto the ground as the rim makes contact and shakes when Johnny steers the truck onto level ground. The rime grinds on loose gravel as he negotiates through potholes and passes a patch of sagebrush.

  “Keep her steady and go as slow as you can, we might need that rim later on,” Greg says, pointing the way.

  “I’ll get it jacked up while you find the wrench,” he replies and turns off the ignition.

  Greg pulls off his tattered security shirt and pulls at the neck of his undershirt, revealing a patch of chest hair that gets caught up in the desert wind before vanishing back under the sweat stained fabric.

  “You almost look heroic,” Scarlet remarks.

  “Thanks,” Greg replies. “Hopefully, I won’t have to be.”

  He surveys the area and picks several cars out of the lineup that may be carrying the tool he’s looking for. He passes on a few compact cars on his way, knowing they won’t have the size he’s lo
oking for.

  The heat from the asphalt drifts up and lingers at his ankles, making him slide uncomfortably in the tactical boots he’s wearing. He makes a mental note to see if he can find a change of clothes after he’s secured the lug wrench and continues searching for a truck.

  A few car-lengths down and he finds what he’s looking for. A large, red Dodge sits at an angle on the highway, positioned like the driver was about to leave the roadway, but thought better of it and fled instead.

  Bloody handprints appear on the side window when Greg gets closer, wiped along at an angle as if someone had used the door to support themselves before they fell from the truck. The key is still in the ignition, pushed forward, long since out of gas and without a charge. Dust and sand covers the interior, reminding Greg of some ancient, previously undiscovered sarcophagus. He shakes his head at the daydream and pulls a small bag from the floorboard on the passenger side and tosses it over his shoulder as he pulls the back of the seat forward to see if there are any tools to be had.

  He twists his head when he hears a scraping sound coming from somewhere down the road. He listens intently, afraid to breath, afraid to make a sound. As he stands there, the noise refuses to return, seemingly lost in that single fading moment.

  Anxious, he moves to the back of the vehicle and removes a tarp that has been fixed along the outer lip of the bed and discovers a couple cases of bottled water and some boxes of food.

  “Jackpot,” he says with a grin and pulls the tarp the rest of the way off the bed. He waves back to the tracks and Johnny catches his signal before Greg suddenly disappears below the lip of the bed.

  “Where’d he go?” Johnny asks, glaring through the heat.

  A cadaver pops up from behind the pickup near the tailgate and exposes itself for only a moment before diving down again.

  “Shit!” Johnny stammers.

  Before anyone can react, Emma squeezes from behind the front seat and levels her rifle. The cadaver creeps over the lip of the bed again with a section of meat hanging from its maw and Emma takes her shot. It looks unaffected by the hit, still staring off into space the way the dead often do. But with a slight twitch of its decaying mouth, the creature sinks slowly behind the truck and vanishes from sight.