Still Dying 2 (Dying Days)

by Armand Rosamilia

  * * * * *

  He is interrupted by banging on the door. The zombies want in. I push against the chair harder and pray the door holds.

  "So, we're just going to land and hope for the best? How do we get out of here with those things between us and the door?" I am almost wishing I'd stayed in the bathroom. Hearing that this is happening everywhere scares the fuck out of me.

  "We can get through that window; it slides open in case of emergency." He points to a large widow on the left side of the plane.

  "What if those things are all over the airport? What do we do when we do get out?" Denise asks.

  "I say we head out together and try to watch each other's backs."

  "I agree to that." I say it quickly because I have no trouble helping these people, especially since they could have locked me out of the cockpit and let those things eat me.

  "Where do we go?" Denise nibbled on the corner of her lower lip, more nervous than afraid.

  "I have a buddy who has a place up near Destin. Big horse ranch, should be plenty of room for us and it's far enough out there that it shouldn't be too crammed with zombies."

  "Can we fly there? I mean, do either of you have a car at the airport? Flying there would sure be quicker, anyway." I shrug. Maybe it is a stupid suggestion, but it makes sense to me.

  "We could, but I don't think the door will last much longer. Maybe we can find a smaller plane and use it. That'll help us go in a bit quieter, too."

  "Sounds good. You know where we can get a plane like that at this airport?" I don't want to look stupid but if this guy has no clue where they keep the little planes, there is no point in my following him.

  "Yeah, I know where the hobby/tour hangars are. We should be able to grab a Cessna or Sandpiper easy. The problem will be in fueling. If there's nobody running things, they may not have the pumps on. We might have to try to siphon."

  "No problem, used to do it in high school all the time. I remember thinking a buck a gallon was high for gas, it'd be heaven now."

  "Yeah, I hear you there. One problem, you can't suck it out like that, jet fuel is too dangerous. We'll have to try and find a pump."

  "Is there anything on this plane we could use? Preferably something we can get to easily?" The thumping is growing louder as we've been talking. It seems like every bastard on the plane is coming for us now. Joe is right not to head to Destin with these creatures so close to breaking through.

  "Not on the plane but we should be able to find something in the hangar we're going to have to run to. You may want to brace yourselves; we're about to land."

  * * * * *

  I pray that he will get us down in one piece and that the landing won't be so rough as to toss us around, knocking us away from the door we are holding closed. It seems that God likes me at least a little because the landing is textbook smooth and soon we come to a roaring stop. As we start forward slowly, we notice zombies everywhere. The airport is crawling with them. I am not sure we'll be able to head to the hangar, when I notice Joe turn away from the airport and its gates. I realize he is taking us right to the hangar. We roll to a stop about a hundred yards from a huge building with little planes parked around. There are no zombies in immediate view and Joe opens the emergency exit.

  "Go ahead and help Denise out and then get yourself out. When the window is clear, I'll make a run for it and hope the door can stay shut long enough for me to get out and try to shut the window behind me."

  "You sure?" Joe asks me.

  "Yeah. If I don't make it, thanks for everything."

  "I didn't do anything."

  "You guys let me into the cockpit and landed the plane safely. I didn't die in a fireball, that's a plus. Even if I die here, at least you gave me a chance. I have a feeling that in the days to come, that's going to be worth a lot."

  Joe nods at me and he helps Denise through the window. He gives me another nod and heads out himself. I brace up the chair to hold the door as best I can and make a run for it. I get out onto a ledge and look down. Joe and Denise are looking up at me, encouraging me to jump, when the zombies get them. I'm currently surrounded by zombies on the ground and in the cockpit. There is nowhere for me to go. I stand on this ledge knowing my death is near. I've only stopped to write down what has happened in case someone finds this. I want you to know what we're up against. I want you to know there is hope. I want you to realize that you don't have to be a cowar...

  The Old Man And The Apocalypse

  A.D. Roland

  Otis eyed the zombies from his fourth floor window, his face twisted into a scowl. Nasty things, those zombies. Staggering around, all rotten and ravenous, worse than animals. Worse was the nastiest of the zombies kept trying to violate the artsy naked-lady statues sexually. He tried to spit out the window and found his mouth was just too damned dry.

  It was important to make his point, so he worked his toothless mouth until he had a small glob of saliva on his tongue. It was a weak, womanly spit, but he made his point. Animals, damn zombies.

  Otis still lived in the same apartment in the same retirement complex he’d lived in for twenty years. Rent was good, so why leave? Besides, he’d seen enough of those bloody horror movies with his granddaughter to know what waited for him beyond his building.

  Nothing. Absolutely nothing, except having to keep moving. No safe place to sleep, nothing to eat. No bathroom.

  Not that he had a functioning bathroom to use here. The apartment down the hall served as an outhouse. He’d used real outhouses as a young’un, so it wasn’t too much of a stretch to make his waste in a bucket with a toilet seat on the rim. Here he had a big apartment, a comfortable bed, and all the food and water he needed. Every day, he sat on his screened balcony and watched the world from three stories up. As far as he knew, he was the only living person left in the entire retirement community. Good thing, too, because he hated talkative neighbors.

  It wouldn’t be too bad, though, to have somebody to jaw with every once in a while. It had been a solid six months since he’d spoken to another person. Stupid, his cat, didn’t really count. Lousy conversationalist. All the damn creature wanted to do was eat and sleep.

  From the county square down below, movement caught his eye. It wasn’t the same staggering, waddling, stumble of the zombies. He squinted. Nope, that was a real person. He couldn’t tell if it was a male or female, adult or a kid.

  “What the hell you doing, son?” he murmured to himself. Otis’s apartment was three buildings down from one of those fancy-schmancy round-a-bout things. In the center of the roundabout was a big fountain with naked lady statues and little fat angel babies. The water hadn’t run in months and looked pretty brackish. At one time, the grass around it had been bright green, so bright it almost looked fake. Now it was all grown up and scraggly with weeds and saplings a couple feet tall.

  The figure paused near the edge of the road, halfway behind a mailbox. The zombies hadn’t noticed him or her yet, seemed like. But what was the idiot trying to do?

  Otis grabbed his binoculars and peered through them. Smooth-faced, dirty, and lean as a toothpick, it was a kid, all right, a teenager. The person was wearing a baseball cap low over his or her head so Otis couldn’t figure out if it was a girl or a boy. From the looks of the bulging backpack, he guessed the kid was scavenging.

  Too bad he’d already cleaned out all six buildings, around the roundabout, of anything useful, months ago. The retirement community didn’t allow guns, but he’d found a handful of pistols and handguns, and plenty of ammo. He had enough canned food and jugs of water to last him months. Maybe even a year or more. Some of the old geezers really knew how to stockpile.

  One of the zombies scuffling around in front of building H turned toward the kid. The kid didn’t seem to notice and stayed crouched down beside the mailbox, clutching a piece of paper or something. The zombie was right up on the kid, and Otis knew he couldn’t just watch him or her get torn to shreds. He’d seen too much of that.

&nbs
p; Otis fumbled in the drawer of the little table between the two wicker chairs. His fingers found the whistle his granddaughter had left there. He put it to his lips and took a deep breath. The zombie was almost on the kid.

  Otis blew as hard as he could. The shrill sound of the whistle cut through the preternatural stillness of the day like a razor. The kid shot upright and nearly backed into the zombie. Only a miracle kept him or her out of the ghoul’s grasping hands. More of the undead had noticed the kid. If that damned kid didn’t get moving real fast, he’d be zombie food.

  Before he really knew what he was doing, Otis leaned against the screen. “Get out of there, dumbass!” His shout echoed around the buildings like a gunshot.

  The zombies’ attention snapped to him. He wasn’t worried about them getting in to his building—one of the first things he’d done was make sure nothing or nobody could get into the building. He hadn’t bothered nailing doors shut or blocking them off—he’d taken a few tubes of industrial caulking and caulked the doors shut. The building was equipped with metal hurricane shutters, so he drew those down over ground floor and second floor windows, and all the balconies except for his own.

  That kid, though, was helpless out there. Otis thought about his granddaughter, Mia. Fourteen when all hell broke loose. He didn’t know whether she was dead or alive. Considering how weak and stupid his son was, she was probably long dead. He hoped so, in a way. Being dead would spare her the torment of struggling to survive. He missed her, though. They lived an hour away, but she came over every other weekend and spent Friday night with him. Her mama and daddy wouldn’t let her watch horror movies, so he bought them for her and they watched them together. Once upon a time, he’d loved the midnight show at the drive-in. Later, he had loved all those corny 70’s and 80’s horror movies.

  The kid was running down the street, as fast as his skinny legs could carry him. Otis couldn’t see his face from above, thanks to the battered baseball cap, but he knew the kid was looking up at the buildings, seeking the source of his momentary salvation.

  If he let the kid in, he’d have to share everything. His food, his water, his space.

  Well, maybe he could set the kid up in one of the other apartments and give him enough food to get him through a few days. After that, he’d be on his own

  What if the kid tried to steal his stuff, though? Otis wasn’t a big man, and he definitely wasn’t strong enough to go against a healthy teenager, if that kid wanted to take his stuff. A few times groups of people had come through the community and broke into the other buildings. They tried to get into Otis’s building, but it had been too much trouble and attracted too much attention. Only one door still opened, and Otis had the only key to the deadbolt. It was a steel fire door, so there wasn’t anybody coming in or out without his permission.

  The kid got right up under his balcony. “Help me, please!” he called up. “Please, mister!”

  Otis looked down into the pale face. For a second, he saw Mia.

  Mia, lost. Alone. Scared. Helpless.

  He closed his eyes and tried to fight back a wave of grief. Mia was dead, and it was a good thing. This kid wasn’t Mia, and he couldn’t help him. It would be too big a risk. Even if the kid wasn’t planning on stealing his stuff, he could be a scout for a bigger group of people. Meaner people. People who would find a way into his building.

  “Come on, please! I don’t wanna die out here.”

  The zombies were getting closer. They seemed to move a little faster, now that their prey was standing still.

  Otis sighed. Mia’s sweet face haunted him. He couldn’t save her, but maybe, just maybe, this kid truly needed help. He could honor Mia, somehow.

  “Run around the building. There’s a fire door on the back deck. It’s gonna take me some time to get down there.”

  “Oh, God, thank you, mister!” The kid took off like greased lightening.

  Grumbling the whole way, Otis grabbed his ax and limped out of his apartment. An old war wound caused his knee to grind with every step. He’d been a month away from an arthroscopy—maybe even a total knee replacement—when the apocalypse happened. He made it to the stairs, realized he’d forgotten his flashlight, and turned back.

  The stairs were his mortal enemy. He hadn’t left the third floor in months. Didn’t need to, not with all the food hidden in several of the apartments on the third floor. Who’d think of looking inside couches and mattresses for canned goods and ramen noodles? Not many people, that’s who.

  The stairs were just as painful to navigate as he remembered. Halfway down the second flight of stairs, he realized he’d left the key to the fire door’s deadbolt upstairs in his apartment. By the time he made it back up, his heart was pounding like a bass drum and sweat soaked his shirt.

  For the second time, he limped down the stairs. This time, he made it to the ground floor. He advanced slowly, listening. Even though he thought he had all the doors secured, one could never be too cautious.

  He navigated through the darkness and approached the fire door. As silently as possible, he unlocked the huge lock. The sound of the tongue sliding into the bolt rumbled like thunder. With one hand on the handle, he pushed it open just a crack, just enough to peer outside.

  Nothing but trees and overgrown hedges encroaching on the wooden deck. No zombies and no escaping children.

  He listened closely for a sound other than the whisper of the wind and the tweet of birds. Was that footsteps?

  He squinted his eyes, as if that would help him hear better, and focused. Maybe the zombies got the kid.

  A pan of sadness jolted through his belly. Too bad.

  He thought of Mia, and wondered if she’d suffered. Had they bitten her? Eaten her?

  God, he hoped not. He hoped she died painlessly, quickly. He couldn’t stand the thought of his baby girl suffering.

  He waited, holding his breath, for a long moment. The watch on his wrist ticked away the endless seconds.

  The kid wasn’t coming. Otis had taken too long to get down the stairs. His shoulder slumped. Well, he’d tried.

  Without much warning, footsteps pounded over the deck and the door was yanked out of his hands. A body flew in, crashed into him, and the flashlight spun out of his hand and into the corner. The door slammed shut. From outside, something hit the door hard.

  The door didn’t latch shut. The lock was the only thing that held it closed. Otis pushed the shuddering, sweaty body off and fumbled for the handle of the door. Once his hand was around it and he could hold it shut, he twisted the key in the lock. The sound of the bolt sliding home and the heavy, strained breathing of his visitor echoed through the big empty room.

  “Thank you.” The kid’s voice was rough, small.

  Otis grunted and took a step. A million lightning bolts of pain shot from his knee to his hip, stealing his breath away. He leaned against the door. Outside, something rubbed and scratched against the metal.

  “They can’t get in, can they?” the kid asked. “They’re getting smart. They’re figuring things out.”

  “They ain’t getting in here.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I been here since it started, safe and sound. Ain’t nothing coming in that I don’t let in.”

  The kid fell silent. Otis heard him shuffling around. A second later, the beam of the flashlight moved as the kid picked it up. He held it out to Otis. “Thank you for letting me in.”

  “You can’t stay for long,” Otis said gruffly. “When they forget you’re here and clear out, you gotta go.”

  “I don’t want to stay too long. My baby brother is back at our camp and he’s sick. I was just here looking for antibiotics or something to help him.”

  Otis thought back on the box full of medications in his bathroom. It was full of anything anybody would need in an emergency. Once he got the kid upstairs into the light and figured out if he could trust him, he would consider giving the kid a bottle of penicillin or something. Maybe not a whole lot—jus
t a few pills. Last thing Otis wanted was the kid thinking he could score something big and killing him and then taking the whole lot. There were lots of drugs in there, stuff that used to be valuable, before the end of the world.

  For a while, there’d been a roving gang that spent time trying to break into the buildings. Otis was sure they were after drugs. He’d watched them in the street, comparing labels on bright orange pill bottles.

  Too bad they hadn’t been real smart. A wave of zombies staggered through while they were trading pills with each other and ate them all, down to the bones. Buzzards picked over what was left, and dogs carried off their bones.

  Otis took a step toward the stairs. The pain in his knee was so bad he nearly black out. He was startled to feel the kid’s narrow shoulders under his arm and his cool hands supporting him. “Let me help you, mister. Where are we going?”

  “Upstairs.”

  It was slow going, hot and sweaty going. In his apartment, he left the sliding glass doors open and all the windows facing the street so that a nice cross-breeze would blow in. Down here in the stairwell, there wasn’t any air circulation. In Florida, even at the tail-end of fall, that meant the narrow space was hot as Hades.

  By the time the kid helped him to the third floor, Otis’s limbs shook and he felt faint. He directed the kid to his apartment. When they were inside, the kid shut the door and locked it, and helped him to the couch. He dropped like a stone to the cushions. Consciousness faded in and out like bad TV reception.

  He came too, clearly, when the kid pushed a glass into his hand. “I found some water in the kitchen. Drink some, mister. You look really bad. I don’t want you to die.”

  The fearful sound in the kid’s voice brought him around a little more. “I ain’t gonna die, son. I’ve made it this long.” He held on to the glass like a lifeline and took a few swallows of the water. “Fan me, boy. I just got a little too hot.”