Still Dying 2 (Dying Days)

by Armand Rosamilia

  Lissa stuffed the patches into her backpack and threw in a foil-pack of azithromycin. The sooner she met the men at the rendezvous point, the quicker she could get Dylan away.

  She gave Stupid the cat a quick cuddle and headed for the door.

  “Wait.”

  She turned around and found Otis holding out a key. “It’s for the deadbolt on the fire door out back. It’s the only one.”

  He really did trust her. She gave the frail old man a hug and kissed his wrinkled cheek. “Otis, I’ll be back soon.”

  He held her a little tighter. “You be careful.”

  * * * * *

  Instead of stopping at the gas station, where Markus told her to wait, Lissa kept trudging along the highway towards the Winn Dixie. The key stuck under the insole of her shoe seemed like a massive rock. She felt it with every step. With luck, they wouldn’t find it. Since she only took her shoes off to sleep, it seemed unlikely that they would.

  Along the way, she picked up a piece of rebar from a construction site. It wasn’t so heavy that she couldn’t swing it, and it was sharp enough on the end to do some damage if she stabbed with it.

  The road was mostly devoid of zombies. The men said the walking dead were starting to rot faster in the heat. If everything that held them together—bones and muscles and tendons and stuff—rotted away, there wasn’t anything left to hold them up, keep them walking. All the first zombies were mostly gone. The ones she saw now looked like survivors, people who had died after the first wave of zombies.

  She kept to the side of the highway, close to the abandoned cars so she could hide quickly, if she had to. So far, she’d been lucky. She’d seen a couple zombies, but they’d been in the distance. By the time she got close to where they’d been they’d disappeared into the woods on either side of the road.

  Night fell faster than she anticipated. Lissa sought refuge in the back of a minivan. A quick search of the vehicle uncovered an unopened bag of stale Cheetos and a case of sun-warmed water. She took a sip out of a bottle, remembering all the panic over something in the bottle leeching into the water, if bottles were left in the car. The chemical caused cancer, or something.

  She slept until dawn. At first light, she set out for the grocery store. It wasn’t too far ahead. She recognized the buildings alongside the road. A hotel, a couple of car dealerships, two tattoo parlors, and a long, L-shaped building that had no discernable use. All the windows were broken out. The closer she got to the grocery store, the more she began to realize something wasn’t right.

  Markus always had a man posted by the overpass that ran behind the store. No one stood there, now. She advanced carefully, fear churning in the pit of her stomach. They wouldn’t have moved on. They were waiting for her.

  What if they’d decided to attack the retirement village ahead of time, before she reported back?

  Would they have left Dylan behind?

  She ran the last quarter-mile to the grocery store. Shoving aside the row of shopping carts that blocked the shattered glass door, she ducked into the store. “Dylan? Hello?”

  Nobody answered her. No sound came from the dark depths of the store. She pulled her flashlight out of the side pocket of her backpack and peered into the shadows filling the space where sunlight didn’t reach. Markus kept his stuff near the front. The other men were scattered around, but kept close enough to him. She ran past the empty spots where their sleeping bags had been, to the far corner where she and Dylan slept.

  His pile of blankets was there, but he wasn’t

  She could only figure out one reason they would take him. They were going for Otis.

  * * * * *

  He couldn’t stand not being on the balcony, where the breeze could blow in. The pain in his knee was monumental. He’d taken one of the pills from the tub, one of the more powerful ones. From where he stood, he could only see the top floors of the other buildings. The waist-high cement wall around the balcony kept anyone from seeing him. Late afternoon sunlight shone in, painting the floor amber. Stupid lounged in the puddle of sun, content.

  People were outside. They were trying to be quiet, but he knew the sounds of the community. Footsteps scuffled, the sound too swift to be made by zombies. Every so often, he caught the hushed murmur of conversations. The distinctive clack of metal on metal, the source mysterious, wafted up to his third floor balcony.

  He figured they were trying to get into the building across the street. Whether they thought they might find something, or if they were trying to see into his apartment, he didn’t really care. Otis scooped up Stupid, cringing from the monumental shard of pain that his knee emitted, and limped to his bedroom.

  If they got in, they got in. He’d done everything he could to stop it from happening, but his precautions were limited to keeping the zombies out. If the living wanted in, they would find a way in.

  The shutters on the first two floors were solid steel. Once they were down, it would be nearly impossible to get in.

  It could be done, though, he reckoned. If somebody was determined enough…

  In his bedroom, he peeked out through a tiny gap in the blinds over the window. There they were. Five of them, clustered around the front door of the other building, surrounded by a ring of zombies.

  Good. Maybe the bastards would get them before they got in. That would solve a few problems.

  He left the window and lay down on the bed. Stupid stretched out next to him and rolled belly-up. With his hand buried in Stupid’s thick, soft fur, Otis closed his eyes and let himself drift to sleep.

  * * * * *

  Byron ambushed her just before she got to Otis’s building. He dragged her into the lobby of the one across the street and threw her down on a hard sofa. “Where’s Dylan?” she demanded. He kicked the couch, perilously close to her legs. She knew how much damage those steel-toed boots of his could do.

  He snatched her backpack off her shoulders and dumped it out on the floor. “What did you get?”

  “Something called fentanyl,” she replied, playing stupid. “It was all I could find. There’s nobody here and all the apartments I could get into are empty.”

  Byron stopped listening the second she said fentanyl. He ripped open the Ziploc bag and dug out a patch. “Shit, kid, you might’a done something good.”

  Lissa jumped up and grabbed his arm. “Wait! Where’s Dylan?”

  He shook her hand off. “In the corner over there.”

  Lissa scrambled for the crumpled form she hadn’t even noticed until Bryon pointed him out. His skin burned hot, so hot it almost hurt to touch. “Dylan, Dylan,” she murmured. “I got you some medicine. Antibiotics. Dylan, open your eyes, okay?”

  His breath came in short, sharp gasps that involved his entire chest. He smelled horrible, of infection and illness.

  Byron loomed over her. “He ain’t opened his eyes since you left. We thought he stopped breathing a few times.” He dropped something on Dylan’s chest. “You might want to think about helping him out, kid. He ain’t gonna come back from this, and if he does, we’re going to have to put him right back down, if you know what I mean.”

  “I got the medicine for him,” Lissa whispered. “It’s gotta work.”

  “How are you going to get him to swallow it?”

  Lissa got the half-full bottle of water out of the pile of stuff from her backpack. “Like you do a dog.” She popped one of the azithromycin out of the pack.

  Byron’s hand shot out and snatched the medicine from her. She screeched and dove for it. She took him by surprise, which was the only way she’d ever be able to take him down. He flattened her with a single punch to the jaw.

  “Stupid little bitch,” he grumbled. “Seriously? You been nothing but a pain in the ass since day one.”

  “You could have ignored us,” she countered, wiping away the trickle of blood running down her chin.

  “You don’t ignore pussy in the apocalypse,” Byron smirked. “You stay right there. We’re taking care of this o
ld geezer, and then we’ll deal with you.”

  “Dylan needs that medicine!”

  Byron rolled his eyes. “Dylan don’t need shit.” He pulled out his gun and fired a single bullet.

  The world ended. It blew up in a bright sparkly wash of stars and color and pain. Absolute, soul-crushing pain. Blood peppered into Lissa’s face. Tiny bits of bone and flesh splattered on the wall behind Dylan. Somebody was screaming; it took an endless loop of time for Lissa to realize it was her. The hole in Dylan’s forehead seemed so tiny, far too small for the extent of damage that left the back of his head pulverized.

  “Fuck, shut up!” Byron growled. “You’re going to bring every zombie down on us!”

  Lissa screamed louder.

  Let them come. Let them devour her, Dylan, every single person on the planet. It was done and over, and she had nothing left.

  Nothing.

  Nothing except a third story bedroom decorated in purple and yellow, with Justin Beiber posters on the wall. A closet full of clothes that fit, and shelves full of books to read.

  She had nothing left except an old man with a broken heart, who wanted her to come back.

  The key in her shoe dug into the sole of her foot like hot coal.

  Byron laughed at her and rolled his eyes again. “Dumb bitch. Just chill. We’ll be done here soon enough.”

  He turned away from her and went back to watching out the front windows. The other men were fighting off the zombies they’d attracted.

  It gave her an idea.

  Byron figured she was helpless, she bet. Distracted by the fighting outside, he never noticed her slip into the darkness past the lobby. Hopefully, this building was set up like Otis’s. She followed the walls and made a big square. From somewhere behind her, she heard Byron hissing her name. The beam of his flashlight danced along the wall ahead of her, behind her, but missed her, miraculously. The darkness lessened perceptively, and she let out a tiny sigh when she saw the edge of the fire door.

  She wondered if it would be open, or if Otis’s key would work. Would the fire doors keys be universal, since they all went to doors inside the same community?

  She paused and dug the key out of her shoe. Holding her breath, she pushed on the bar across the door.

  It hung up at first; long enough to make her spirits sink. Unexpectedly, the steel barrier swung open and dumped her out into the blazing sunlight, right at the feet of a zombie missing a sizeable chunk of his torso. It noticed her and leaned down, fingers grasping. She rolled away just as Byron charged through the door—right into the zombie’s arms.

  It moved fast, far faster than Lissa every thought possible. Yellowed, broken teeth latched down on Byron’s neck. A geyser of arterial blood splashed across the grass. She jumped to her feet and raced around the building.

  They would see her if she ran across the road. The only way to get to Otis’s building would be to cross behind the other buildings and run across at the roundabout. The overgrown garden in the middle of the circle would help hide her.

  They would still see her.

  Without putting much thought into it, she started to scream.

  The zombies were slow and uncoordinated, but at the sound of a human voice, they began to emerge from the alleys between the buildings, from the woods behind the buildings, and from the hip-high grass that grew rampant everywhere.

  She raced across the road, dodging the rotted, fleshless phalanges grasping for her. One of them snagged her hair and snatched her off her feet. She hit the ground moving, crawling, as fast as she could.

  Dead hands were everywhere, clutching, pinching, squeezing. Teeth snapped near her ears and she felt the displacement of air as another zombie lost its tenuous balance and fell nearly on top of her. She made it to the curb and managed to get her feet beneath her. Otis’s building was ten feet away. All she had to do now was make it around to the back.

  The zombies hadn’t clustered around the back of the building. The ones that were there were old and more rotten than not. Moving wasn’t their best skill. She was able to knock them down and dash away before they could get a grip on her.

  At the door, she froze. The key. The key was gone. She’d had it in her hand, and when she’d fallen out of the other door—

  She dropped it.

  Lissa glanced back around the corner. The zombies were filtering down alongside the building, faster, stronger ones this time. She couldn’t make it through all of them. She turned and pounded on the door in frustration.

  Dylan was dead, and her only hope of some sort of existence was locked in an apartment three stories up with a bad knee.

  The first of the zombies stumbled around the side of the building. She lunged after Lissa. Lissa tripped on her own feet and dropped to her butt. The zombie landed atop her, teeth snapping. Viscous fluid ran down what remained of her chin. The stench was enough to make bile rise in Lissa’s throat.

  The zombie’s teeth snapped closer and closer to Lissa’s face. She’d gotten her arm up across the zombie’s throat, but it wasn’t going to hold her off much longer. Already, Lissa’s arm quivered from the strain.

  With a heavy metal thunk, the fire door swung open. The bottom corner of the door narrowly missed the top of Lissa’s head. The zombie paused, momentarily startled, but it was enough to give Lissa an advantage. She rolled the ghoul off and scuttled backwards. A hand grabbed the back of her shirt, aiding in her escape.

  “Damn girl,” Otis grumbled. “I gave you a key for a reason!” He dragged her into the dark corridor and reached out to slam the door. Lissa held her breath, expecting a zombie to appear out of nowhere and bite the old man.

  But the door slammed and he twisted the key in the lock, driving the bold home. “You said—“ she gasped. “You said that was your only key. The one you gave me.”

  “I found the spare.”

  Lissa stayed on the floor until she could breathe without panting. “They haven’t gotten in, have they?”

  “No. You and your screaming did the trick. The ones that survived high-tailed it out of here as fast as jackrabbits.”

  “Good.”

  “What happened to your brother, Lissa?”

  A huge knot clogged her throat and she couldn’t speak around it. She started crying again. Otis slid down the wall and sat next to her. He worked his bony arm around her, and she cried into his shoulder. He murmured soft things she couldn’t really hear through her own tears.

  When she’d calmed down, he suggested they go upstairs. “Safer,” he said. “Just in case.”

  She stood up first and helped pull him upright. He cried out in pain. He groped his chest and leaned back against the wall. “Ain’t as young as I used to be,” he whispered weakly.

  “Wait,” Lissa said. She pulled one of the patches from her pocket. With the aid of his flashlight and her pocketknife, she slit the thin film and squeezed some of the gelled medicine out. She used the blade of the knife to smear some on Otis’s hand. “I don’t know exactly where to put it. It’s supposed to absorb into your skin. You stay here and I’ll walk around the halls to make sure nobody got in.”

  Otis eased down on the top step. “You be careful.”

  The ground floor was secure. She couldn’t find any way to look outside, so she pressed her ear against the window. Nothing filtered through the heavy steel shutters and thick safety glass. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe it meant it was over.

  Dylan was still dead, but she was free. She thought about his body, discarded in a corner of an abandoned building. He’d rot there, alone, unburied, until somebody found him in some distant future.

  If anybody found him at all. What if they died here and this was it for humanity? No more people. No more babies. No more civilization…

  She closed her eyes and fought the urge to just give up. She was fourteen. She should be in school, spending time at the mall and the beach, dating boys and going to concerts. Not running from zombies.

  A soft cry echoed through the d
ark hallway. Otis.

  She ran back down the hallway, her flashlight dancing before her. The old man slouched against the wall, gasping for breath. “My heart,” he grunted.

  “No,” she said, stupidly. “No. Not you. Not now.”

  “I’m an old man, girl.”

  “Is there any medicine in your box upstairs? What can I get that will help?”

  “Nothing’s going to stop this, Lissa. I think it’s just got to happen.”

  Lissa held his hand in both of hers. She couldn’t stop crying. “You survived zombies, Otis. You can’t die now. You’re supposed to take care of me.”

  He chuckled, painfully. “You don’t need anybody taking care of you, honey.”

  “I want somebody to take care of me!”

  Otis clenched his hand tightly around hers. He stifled a pained grunt. “You stay here. I’ll be taking care of you this way. There’s enough food on the third floor to last you a year or more. Enough water, enough supplies. You stay here and keep your head down, and, maybe, things will start to come back together.”

  She felt him start to sag. She hated being in the dark, hated being alone with him. There should be ambulances racing to the rescue, and an ER waiting to treat him. He shouldn’t be dying alone in a dark stairway. She eased her body next to his, so when he slouched further, she could guide his head into her lap. He was saying something.

  “What? I can’t hear you, Otis.”

  He repeated himself, a little louder, and even though she was crying and her heart was shattered, she couldn’t help but laugh

  * * * * *

  Stupid snuggled underneath the thick, fleecy blanket Lissa draped over her lap. He purred, kneading his claws into her thigh. “Ouch, Stupid,” she grumbled. His purring paused, along with the kneading, and then resumed with a vengeance. Lissa arranged a fold of the blanket between her jeans and the cat’s claws. Offended, Stupid jumped off her lap and padded back inside.

  She took a deep swallow of her not-hot-enough instant coffee and looked toward the wildly-overgrown roundabout. Zombies wandered around, aimlessly. They seemed to sense life here, and were determined to find it.