by Gayle Katz
“Watch out!” I shout.
Damar points and aims his automatic pistol at zombie Aron right in front of my face. “Please, God, forgive me,” he says. When he shoots the Aron zombie in the head, the pistol’s report is so loud I have to hold my ears. Meanwhile, a splattering of zombie brains and innards explode inside the truck and cover all three of us in a thin layer of disgusting goo.
I wipe some of the zombie brain off my face. “Ewww. So horrible. Gah.”
Samir manages to push the remains of zombie Aron back out of the window. It falls to the ground with a thud and the truck jumps when we roll over it. The window is shattered, leaving us partially exposed.
The sound of the gunshot brings out the rest of the horde and soon the truck is crawling with them. Another one destroys the driver’s side window and tries to attack Damar, to which Samir picks up his weapon and fires. Damar speeds up and then hits the breaks a couple of times in order to shake the rest of them loose and run them over.
I look at Damar and then at Samir. Their lips are moving, but I can’t hear them very well. I also have a splitting headache and a constant ringing tone in my ears.
“I can’t hear you,” I say to Damar, as I touch my ears.
I continue looking at him and his lips are moving again, but no sound is coming out of them. At least nothing that I can hear.
Damar turns his attention away from the road and gives me a concerned look. I look back at him and see zombies jumping onto the driver’s side door. Reaching into my bag, I fumble for my mini revolver, but Samar pushes my head down and points his rifle instead.
Before he can get off a shot, a pair of zombies crash through the window and pull Damar from the moving truck. I grab the steering wheel and pump the brakes. The truck swerves, but finally stops.
Samir gets out and starts shooting all of the zombies behind us surrounding Damar. As he’s putting them down, I find the revolver the Rat gave me and jump out of the vehicle ready to shoot zombies. By that time, I can feel gunshots hit the truck. Damar is already running back to the truck and Samir is back inside the cab.
As Damar approaches me by the driver’s side, he says something that I can’t hear and points my mini handgun down to the ground. He helps me back into the truck and hops back in himself.
He tries to start the ignition again, but the truck doesn’t start. I see him point to the gas gauge, tap it, look over to Samir, and pull me out of the truck. Seconds later, the vehicle explodes in a fiery blaze. I can feel the intense heat from the fire burn my skin.
Chapter 11
________________________________________
Damar and I are lying on the ground as Samir walks over to help us to our feet. The three of us watch the truck burn right in front of our eyes. No need to survey the damage. The truck is toast. However, I did manage to grab my bag before the truck blew up. Now the brothers are looking at each other. Their lips are moving again. I still can’t hear. They look angry.
I guess we’re going the rest of the way to their safe house on foot. Damar takes my head in his hands and focuses my face on his. I know he’s saying something, but I can’t read lips so I don’t know what he’s trying to tell me. I shake my head. Nothing. Silence. He grabs my hand in his and we start walking. Nervous that I can’t hear, I look around furiously to see if any zombies are stalking us. Except for the ones we ran over, I don’t see anything. I don’t smell anything, either. Maybe we’re in the clear.
The sun is still out and it’s hot. I grab for my bag and take out a bottle of water. I yank Damar’s hand and offer it to him. He takes it, smiles, and momentarily releases his grip on me to open it. He drinks it as we continue walking. I pull out a second one and give it to Samir. He nods his head in appreciation. I take the third and final one I stole from the broken refrigerator, pull my hand from Damar’s grip, twist off the cap, and begin to drink. Damar looks back when I pull away and he regains his hold on me.
As I consume the bottle of water, I have to admit, even though it’s warm, it’s still cooler than me and quite refreshing. The sun is a scorcher today. I feel like my skin is blistering it’s so hot. I’ve never been so grateful for warm drinking water before.
I stare at Damar’s hand holding on to mine. I don’t know whether he’s holding on to me so I don’t run away or because he feels guilty that I can’t hear, but either way I appreciate his concern. If I hadn’t run into them, I’d either be zombie food or dead from exposure by now. I don’t know how the Rat thought I’d be able to do this on my own.
As the day drags on, I can’t remember how far we’ve walked. I feel as though we’ve been doing it for a while. I’m exhausted, but I keep going. The sooner we reach shelter, the better. The sun is melting my brain and the dirt and dust is caking up my nostrils making it difficult to breathe. As we walk down yet another block, both Damar and Samir veer off to the right. I look up and see a large apartment building on the opposite corner. All of the entrances are boarded up.
Damar pulls me close. I don’t know what’s happening. Samir is looking around and has his gun out. We duck behind the rubble of some random building and keep watch. I close my eyes for a moment and pray nothing bad happens. I open my eyes again and see Damar pointing to the apartment building. He doesn’t say a word.
Maybe this is the safe house he’s been talking about? And then we see them. Zombies. Not just one or two, but a whole swarm of them. The smell is more pungent than usual, maybe the sun baking down on dead zombie flesh is what’s doing it. The smell is so heavy in the heat, it surrounds us and I can’t smell anything else. I try to cover my face with my shirt, but it permeates every cell of my body. I want to throw up, but that’ll make noise.
The zombies’ skin is pale. Their eyes are crazy, deranged, and depraved. They’re stumbling around without purpose, eerily waiting for something, which means they haven’t found prey yet. We have to be careful we don’t give them something to hunt. We should hunker down here and stay out of sight. There are just too many of them. We’d be overwhelmed. I guess Damar feels the same since we’re hiding out until this zombie mob that has arrived onto the scene moves along to terrorize another area.
Then I feel a breeze roll through. It feels nice, but the problem is that it may carry our scent and give away our position. Damar seems antsy. If they discover us, we’re screwed. From the look on this face, I think that’s what Damar is thinking, too.
Damar looks at me. He points to us and then he points to the apartment building across the way. He spells a word in the sand: RUN. Despite not hearing, I understand him loud and clear. I close my eyes, inhale deeply, and nod. I muster up the strength and courage to sprint to the shelter. And that’s when I smell it. The dry air brings that familiar stench of rotting zombies with it. It’s a powerfully putrid smell of decomposing flesh that assaults my nostrils. That smell brings back so many horrible memories. And I could have gone my entire life without experiencing it again.
I open my eyes and focus on the building Damar pointed out. That’s our target. Making sure my bag is firmly in hand, Damar gives the sign and we run. As I start my mad dash, I inhale deeply to get as much oxygen as possible into my body. Though I can smell the stink of necrotic flesh in the air, I ignore it and keep going. I turn around, look behind me, and catch a glimpse of Samir and some dreadful-looking zombies stumbling after us. So much for being inconspicuous. I focus on the building ahead, but I can’t help myself. I look over my shoulder and get a glimpse of what’s happening behind us. They’re still coming. Run faster. Run faster. We’re going to need every extra second to figure out a way inside. If we die here, Jack has no chance.
Ignoring my body, I continue toward the boarded-up door of the building with the brothers. I look back again. I’m thankful the gap between the vile creatures and us is increasing, but soon we won’t have anywhere to run if they surround us. I can hear the horrible noises they’re making and screeching behind us. As we’re getting closer, I hear Damar scream to get someone�
��s attention. He must be screaming really loud if I can hear him or maybe my hearing is starting to come back.
“Hello! Someone please open the door! We need your help!”
I hear him, but it’s low. Nothing. If no one helps us, we’ll have to run to another building or grab for our weapons and pray we have enough time to pull them from our bags before we’re overwhelmed. Damar tries again. He shouts as loud as he can, but the more energy he gives to his words, the less that’s directed to his arms and legs to carry us forward.
“Please! If someone is there, open the door! We need your help!”
***
We’re about to hit the door when it suddenly and miraculously opens. The person standing at the threshold is wearing a mask and holding a big gun. I can’t tell if the person is a man or a woman, but I’m relieved to see someone is stepping up to help. As we approach the door, the person points the gun at us and shouts, “Duck!”
We drop to our knees as the person starts shooting into the crowd of zombies. Every time it goes off, I can feel it in my bones. It’s big, imposing, and fires out bullets so quickly. The machine gun is so loud it hurts my ears, evidence that my hearing is just starting to come back. I hope this doesn’t hinder that. I need my hearing. I’m dead here without it.
Still on my knees, I cover my ears and feel the empty shell casings hit me from above. They’re so hot. They burn my skin. I look behind and see some of the zombies falling down. Others are exploding, I assume from the bullets reaching their intended destinations.
The person reaches out and grabs me. “Get inside. Now! Move! Move! Move!”
I get to my feet and scurry inside the building. Once inside, I fall to the floor, dropping my bag, trembling, out of breath, and almost in tears.
The door slams shut. We listen. I can feel the thud of bodies crashing against it. The door jumps a few times, but holds. Stressed out, I cover my face with my hands, rocking back and forth on the floor. Now inside, the person with the big gun goes back to patrolling the perimeter.
“We’re safe. You’re safe. You’re OK now,” Damar whispers directly into my ear. His voice is deep. Although faint, I can hear him again.
“No. No. No. I can still feel them…banging against the door…trying to get in.”
“Shhh. Not so loud,” he says. “Don’t worry. The door is reinforced with steel and the rest of the windows are boarded up, too. We’re safe for now. Sometimes this happens, but if we don’t move or make any noise, they eventually go away.”
I didn’t realize I was talking so loud. I hear him, but I’m still frantic. Not to mention angry at Chris for letting me go into this nightmare alone. And I miss Jack. Every second that ticks by I’m not sure if I’m ever going to see him again. The pressure is on and I’m even more alone now that my hearing is giving out on me.
“Are you OK?” Still on the floor, I can barely hear Damar’s voice talking to me. I look up, but I can’t respond yet. My brain is on overdrive, trying to process everything that’s happened. I guess you never get used to a zombie outbreak.
“Maybe this will help.” He pulls the masked person away from their post for a moment to introduce me. Once the mask is off, I see it’s a woman. She stoops down to my level, gun still in hand. She’s a nice-looking woman with big, brown eyes, deep brown hair, and tan skin. Her strong face and friendly demeanor help to take the edge off the zombie encounter.
She says something, but I don’t understand her. She looks to Damar and then looks back at me. She smiles, takes my hands in hers, and holds them there for a moment or two. She seems like a nice lady.
I nod my head. If this woman can handle all this crap, then I can too.
She gets up, puts her mask back on and continues her surveillance.
Despite not being able to hear fully, I try to speak at a normal level. “Ummm. Yeah. Yeah. I think I’m OK. I’m just a little freaked out. Gimme a minute.”
“Are you hurt? Did they bite you?” Damar asks.
I don’t remember any of them getting close enough to bite me, but I look at my arms and legs to double-check. With adrenaline pumping through my veins, a zombie can bite you and it might not even register in your brain until it’s too late. “No. She opened the door just in time.”
“Let me look at you.”
He moves my hair so he can see my neck. As his fingers brush against me, I jump at his touch. No one has touched me like that since I’ve been with Jack. I miss his touch. I might never feel it again.
“Don’t worry. I’m not going to hurt you. I just want to be safe,” he says.
“I’m sorry. I’m just frazzled.”
“I understand.”
As he continues his inspection, he carefully scrutinizes every inch of my body until he comes to my arm and sees the scar left from my old zombie bite that I showed him before. “So what happened out there?”
“I don’t know. One minute I was in a taxi. The next a truck crashes into us and I run into you.”
“What happened to the taxi driver?”
“I think he’s dead. He was pinned between the truck and the cab. I tried shaking him. He wasn’t moving.”
“He might still be alive, but we can’t check with those things running around out there plus we can’t be sure how far you walked from the crash site before running into us. I’m not sure I want to risk it.”
I don’t know what to say. I feel bad that I left him behind, but what other choice did I have? I couldn’t carry him. What else could I have done?
“He’s probably dead or maybe he’s already one of them. Listen, what are you doing here? You don’t look like you belong here.”
“It’s a long story.”
“We have time. We can’t tempt fate and go anywhere right now.”
Not knowing exactly what the device in my neck is recording, I try to be friendly and as open as possible without giving away too many details of my mission. The Rat can’t fault me for getting help, can he? I mean, that’s probably the only way he’s going to get what he wants.
“I’m not from around here,” I begin.
Damar grins. “I figured that out on my own.”
I pull out the map from my bag and point to where I need to go. “Can you help me get here?”
Making a pained face, he shakes his head. “You don’t want to go there. Bad men live there and we’ve lost enough people already.”
“I’m so sorry about your brother, but I still have to go there.”
“Why would someone like you want to go to some place like that? That doesn’t make sense.”
“I can’t answer your question. It’s complicated. I’m sorry.”
“If you can’t tell me anything else, I can’t help. Bad men live there. They do bad things. If I’m going to risk my neck, I need to know why. Rushing blindly into a sensitive situation like the one you’re describing is not wise. Why don’t you take some time to relax? Taking a break might help you thoughtfully figure out your next move. I have to take care of a few things. I won’t be long.”
He takes my hand and leads me to a cot. “Rest. I’ll be back soon.” And in flash, he’s gone.
Chapter 12
________________________________________
I sit down on the bed and check out my surroundings. There are so many people in this compound. And it looks as though they’re working together. I’m not sure I’ve seen this type of camaraderie lately. I feel like since the outbreaks began, it’s been an every-person-out-for-themselves mentality. It’s nice to see people helping people and everybody contributing. Who knew a zombie apocalypse could bring people together?
Despite the harsh conditions outside, I see people tilling the soil, planting, and harvesting crops in a designated area within the secure complex. I also spot other people cleaning and assembling guns. One woman is teaching a class of young students. Other people in white coats are tending to the wounded and sick. As my hearing begins to adjust to my new surroundings, I hear a constant, low buzzing sound
. There are lights on in this place that I didn’t see anywhere else, so maybe they’ve got generators going. This little safe house is filled with resourceful people working to create an independent, self-contained civilization unto itself in the midst of this zombie calamity.
All of them look like they belong to this area. They have tanned skin, dark hair, and dark eyes. I’m the only one who stands out like a sore thumb although between the sun beating down on us out there and the fact I’m covered in layers of zombie gunk, who knows what I look like right now. It’s probably not a pretty sight.
Even still, a feeling of safety and security washes over me. I feel calm. So calm that I must have dozed off. The next thing I know, Damar is sitting at the foot of the bed, watching me. He looks different somehow, cleaner. He smells different, too, fresh like soap.
“Hi again,” he says.
“Hi.”
“If you can hear without me shouting, that’s good.”
“Yeah. I guess my ears just needed a little time off.”
“And you’re talking at a normal level. That’s very good.”
“Listen,” I say, closing my eyes, hoping the tracker in my neck doesn’t betray me, “there’s something I need inside of that place. My husband’s life depends on it. I only need you to help me get there. Nothing more.”
He stares at me. I guess he needs some more convincing.
“Do you have someone you love?” I ask.
“Yes.”
I smile. “I’ll never be able to show you how much I appreciate everything you’ve done for me. But now I need your help again, to save my husband. Please. Just get me here.” I point at the map again. “That’s all I’m asking.”
“I’ll think about it, but I want you to understand why I’m so hesitant.”
“I know it’s a bad area and it’s a lot to ask.”
“Let me explain.” He pauses for a moment. “I haven’t actually told this story to anyone before and, honestly, I don’t know where to start.”