by Alex Apostol
XII.
Lee Hickey went crashing feet first through the second-story bedroom window. Jagged pieces of broken glass scratched at his legs, but he didn’t feel a thing. He was too wired on adrenaline to worry about himself.
A door slammed nearby.
He sprang forward through the doorway and into the hall. The girl’s bedroom was to the right. Frightened by the noise of Lee breaking in, she had locked herself inside.
With one swift kick, the door flew open, pieces of broken wood flying from the frame. The girl gave a high-pitched scream as she cowered on her bed.
“Please don’t eat me! Please don’t eat me!” she shouted over and over again.
Lee walked over and kneeled down next to her. “I’m here to help you,” he said gently. “But you need to listen and follow me, okay?”
“You’re the man from the porch?”
Lee nodded his head, sending his dark hair brushing against his shoulders.
“Are you an angel?”
“I wish, lass,” he said with a soft, breathy laugh. “I’m just the man who’s going to get you out of here.”
“But those people are outside,” she whimpered as tears welled up in her round, blue eyes.
If he didn’t contain the situation, he would have to carry her out of there kicking and screaming. That would ruin his plan of escaping without being seen or heard.
“My name’s Lee. What’s yours?”
“Jessica,” she said with a sniffle. She hid half her face in the fur of her teddy-bear.
“And what’s his name?” Lee nodded to the stuffed toy in her arms.
“Brutus.”
Lee smiled. “What a fantastic name for a brave little bear.”
The girl raised her head and gave a weak smile.
“Do you think we can be as brave as Brutus so the three of us can find somewhere safer to hide?”
Reluctantly, she nodded her head sending her blonde curls bouncing around her face.
“All right then.” Lee scooped her up and walked out of the room.
As he headed down the stairs, he looked to the window in the front r. The afternoon sun had been blotted out by shadows of banging hands. Jessica hid her face in the nape of Lee’s neck. He wanted to tell her everything would be okay, but it was best to keep quiet.
He walked carefully past the entryway and over to the west-side of the house where the living room was located. Two large windows sat side-by-side. Lee gently placed Jessica’s bare feet down on the hardwood floor.
“I’m going to climb out through the window first.”
Immediately, the girl starting shaking her head with her eyes squeezed tightly shut.
“Jessica, darlin’, listen to me.”
She opened her eyes again slowly to stare at Lee, terrified.
“I’ll go through the window first and then I’ll grab you and make a run for it. I’ve already checked and there’s no monsters on this side of the house. We have a clean getaway and I’m a really fast runner.”
“Faster than that bird on TV that’s always being chased by the coyote?” she asked with her face turned upward, her innocent eyes wide with fear.
“Faster than the Roadrunner. I promise.”
“Okay,” she said.
Together they headed quietly over to the windows. Lee turned the lock on the top of one and lifted it open. They must have been recently installed because it slid upward on the track without making a sound. Lee let out a huff of air from between his lips. Sweat ran down the side of his face, wetting the roots of his thick hair.
He took out his pocket knife and sliced through the screen from top to bottom. The ripping noise made him cringe, but he moved quickly. The moans of the dead masked it. Hands continued to bang at the front as Lee slipped out the window on the side.
With his arms raised, he motioned for Jessica to lower herself down to him.
She stood there, Brutus clenched in both her arms, staring down at Lee.
His hands beckoned to her desperately, his eyes practically shouting at her to jump into his arms.
If either of them said a single word, they were dead.
Lee stared into the little girl’s eyes. His heart beat fiercely. The back of his shirt was drenched in sweat. He waved his arms to get her to jump, but she wouldn’t.
A snap echoed nearby.
They both turned to see a pair of stiff feet, awkwardly bent, sticking out from the edge of the house. Lee heard a quick gasp come from Jessica and his stomach sank. That was all it took to alert the corpse of their presence.
“Now, lass!” Lee shouted.
Jessica jumped through the window and landed in Lee’s hulking arms like a sack of potatoes. He didn’t waste a moment before taking off westward. The prescriptions in his pockets shook as they had before. The little girl sobbed into his chest. Lee breathed out in huffs as he ran full-force past the house next door.
He didn’t bother to look over his shoulder to see if they were following. It didn’t matter. He would save Jessica no matter what it took.
XIII.
Holding the shaking body of the little girl to his chest, Lee Hickey ran away from her house. They were in need of somewhere to hide, anywhere that would separate them from the dead. He could hear muffled sobs as the girl covered her mouth with her ragged teddy-bear.
When the arms of the undead stretched out from behind another house, Lee was quick to zig-zag out of the way without slowing down. His heart pounded. The throbbing in his ears was deafening. A sharp pain shot up his leg with every running step he took, but none of it slowed him down. He had lost his wife, lost his child, and though he wasn’t crazy about them, he had lost his in-laws as well…but he wasn’t going to lose Jessica.
Faint growls echoed off the surrounding trees, making it hard to determine where the walking corpses lingered. Whenever Lee thought the path was clear, a body would shamble out from behind a wide trunk, arms extended and mouth open, ready to take a chunk out of their warm, tender flesh. Jessica would scream and Lee would evade just in time to save them both. For thirty minutes it went on like this.
The sun sank behind the horizon, thrusting them into an impenetrable darkness. There were no lights along the highway to guide them. Not a single car passed by to give them a brief release, but several lay dead on the side of the road. A thick overhang of trees blocked out the light of the moon. How would they ever find shelter in this darkness?
Just as Lee was beginning to panic, the trees parted to reveal an old barn in a field of newly sprouted corn. From there, they could see for acres in every direction. The rustle of corn stalks could alert them of oncoming danger. It was the perfect spot to lay low while he figured out their next move.
“We’re going to stay the night in that barn, there,” he said, his mouth pressed against Jessica’s head so he wouldn’t have to speak too loudly.
All he got in return was a soft whimper and her arms squeezing tighter around his neck. Carefully, he headed into corn stalks, which brushed against his knees as he moved. The scraping sound carried on the hot breeze and made Lee’s skin crawl.
“We’re almost there, sweetheart,” he said. “We’re almost there.”
He continued forward at a brisk walk, his desire to get out of open and into the barn overwhelming him until he thought he would burst forth in a run. Sweat continued to drip down his back and drench his shirt, but this didn’t deter Jessica from clutching onto him like a spider monkey.
A rustle came from nearby.
Lee stopped in his tracks, holding his breath.
Silence.
He moved forward.
Another rustle. This time, he saw a patch of stalks move erratically.
“What was that?” Jessica whispered.
Lee was still staring at the moving stalks as the hidden thing drew closer. Why wasn’t it standing and walking toward them? Maybe it was only a small animal.
“Lee?” Jessica’s voice became louder and more desperate. “Lee!”
Her arms tightened around his neck so they almost strangled him as her body moved upward in an attempt to get away.
“It’s OK,” he said. “It’s just an animal. We’re almost there. Let’s keep going.”
Against his better judgement, Lee turned for the barn and continued forward. Every so often he looked over his shoulder. Whatever it was, it still followed them. It seemed to be going the same pace, because it was always about five to ten yards behind.
Suddenly, Jessica’s scream tore apart the thick night air.
XIV.
Bloodied hands reached for Lee’s ankles, tugging at the laces of his tennis shoes. He quickly moved backward and away, but tripped over something large and hard.
Down they went.
Jessica screamed, this time with an appalling shriek that made Lee’s ears ring. One of the dead had grabbed ahold of his leg and was pulling itself up with its chewed up arms. The entire bottom half of its body was missing, its entrails dragging behind, staining the stalks it brushed by.
With a swift kick, Lee’s heel sent the thing’s jaw jutting out to the side with a crack. It gave him just enough time to back out of its grip and right himself. He stood over the pathetic being, looking down as it reached up with one arm, hunger burning painfully behind its milky eyes.
Lee kicked again, rolling it onto its back. It continued to reach up for him. A few short hours ago, he would have lost his lunch over the site of it. Now, he wanted it smashed into a bloody pulp. He brought his foot down and caved in its skull. Blood and brains spilled out onto the ground like candy out of a piñata.
Jessica shrieked again.
Lee whipped around to find another one of the disemboweled dead tugging at the hem of her nightgown. He made to move toward her just as the young girl lost her balance and fell to the ground.
“NO!” Lee screamed.
He reached for her as the thing sunk its teeth into her shoulder. Lee pulled her up, tearing away flesh and muscle that still hung from between the zombie’s blackened, bloody teeth. Its tongue moved all around to lap up the fresh, warm liquid life.
He held Jessica to his chest. She no longer cried out in pain. Defeated, tiny sobs racked her body as she started to shake.
Tears welled up in Lee’s brown eyes. He’d failed again. Every single person he tried to keep alive during this apocalypse had been ripped apart by the vile undead.
The thing still snatched at the air to get more meat into its masticating mouth. A rage filled Lee’s heart until he thought it would burst. He let out a long, anguished cry as he stomped on its head, rendering it unrecognizable.
“You son-of-a-bitch!” he yelled out with fury. “You fucking son-of-a-goddamn-bitch!”
Long after the creature had stopped moving, Lee finally took a step back with heaving breaths. The fog of devastation dissipated. He remembered what brought him to that very moment.
Jessica’s small arms no longer wrapped tightly around his neck. Instead of curling up in a ball on his chest, her head laid back, her neck extended, and her long blonde hair fell downward like a golden waterfall.
Gently, he laid her down on the ground where the stalks had been flattened. Blood gushed from the wound near her throat. There was silence all around as her life spilled from her tiny body onto his shaking hands. His bottom lip quivered as he stared into her vacant eyes. He suppressed the urge to say her name again. She wouldn’t answer this time.
With one knee rested on the ground, he lowered his head into one of his thick hands. It was his destiny in life to be alone, that much was becoming clear. With the world the way it was now, it was useless to become attached to any living thing. The dead would simply claim it as their own.
A hand brushed against his, causing his lids to spring open. Jessica stared up at him with new eyes, starving for her first feeding. Her teeth gnashed together as she gave a feminine but threatening hiss. The wound on her shoulder no longer bled. There was no life left in her to pour out.
Before Lee could move, he heard a loud bang and dark blood drenched his face.
“Got it!” he heard a man yell with enthusiasm. “I got the sumbitch. Did you see that? The way it exploded? Aw, man!”
Whoever it was, he wasn’t alone.
Mixed emotions spread through Lee as he continued to kneel in the cornfield with his eyes closed—hatred for the person who so callously wasted poor Jessica, heartsick from the entire day of loss with no time to grieve, and exhausted from endless running from the dead. The only thing he didn’t feel was fear.
Slowly, he rose to his full height.
“Hey, man, you all right? Did it get you?” the same man asked with authority.
Lee’s eyes opened, the only part of his face not covered in Jessica’s blood.
“Oh, shit,” the young blond man said slowly. “He’s one of them!”
Lee waited for the release of death and the reunion with his wife and Jessica on the other side.
“No! Wait!” another gentler man’s voice said. “He’s not a zombie. Look at his eyes.”
Lee continued to stand there, breathing in and out through his nostrils heavily. His arms hovered over the sides of his legs in a solid stance. The intensity at which he clenched his massive fists caused them to crack.
“Are you bit or not, motherfucker?” the blonde man, who was really more boy than man, demanded loudly, his voice carrying through the night.
“What’s your name?” a third asked.
The massive Irishman took one last breath in as he sized up the three men before him.
“My name is Lee. I’m a nurse.”
XV.
“Lee! Man, is that really you?” the tall brunette said with wide eyes. “I didn’t recognize you with all the…” he paused and motioned to his face.
“Blood,” the youngest, curly-haired teen said.
Lee’s face didn’t light up in recognition of Rowan Brady, a man he had seen only yesterday in the emergency room. Not a single flinch in the corners of his lips gave any indication he felt relief in finding someone he knew, even if he had only met the young man a total of seven times.
Rowan’s smiling face fell as Lee stood staring ahead, drenched in crimson blood. The cornfield was saturated in a heavy silence. Only the distant screams of others falling victim nearby penetrated it.
“Well, let’s move this on inside,” the thick-necked blonde said with a stern face. “I’m Lonnie by the way.”
“Mitchell,” the third said with a delicate wave of his shotgun.
He held it awkwardly, like he was afraid it would go off with the slightest touch. It was clear he had never held a gun before this night.
They waited a moment for the bloodied nurse to agree with their plan or not. When an answer didn’t come, Lonnie turned and headed for the barn anyway, not looking back to see if anyone was following him. Rowan Brady quickly jogged to catch up, keeping by Lonnie’s side.
Only Mitchell stayed behind to make sure Lee would follow.
“I’m sorry about the girl,” he said somewhat nervously, his brown eyes darting back and forth.
Lee didn’t say anything, but started to move forward with the others.
“So, was she your daughter or just someone you came across or—” he was immediately cut off when he saw Lee’s glowing eyes. It was a fierce look that said he didn’t want to answer any of the boy’s questions.
“Right, okay, got it,” Mitchell stammered, facing forward. “Don’t want to talk, that’s cool.”
When they reached the barn doors, Lonnie raised a hand to signal everyone to stop. They all stood behind his stocky frame, the other two peering over his head to see if they could see anything lurking inside. Lee looked forward, but his mind was elsewhere.
He couldn’t stop thinking about the look on Anna’s face, permanently frozen in her last scream as her parents dug into her, ripping her apart, tearing their unborn baby from her womb. He bit his bottom lip until he drew blood. The metallic taste in his
mouth brought him back to the present, where Lonnie was entering the barn with caution, a flashlight balanced in his hand while he tried to aim his rifle.
“Clear!” he said like a soldier leading his troops through a battlefield.
“Thank God,” Mitchell sighed, stepping into the warm barn. He set his shotgun up against one of the empty stalls. “I don’t think I could have taken another one of those things tonight.”
“Well, you better get used to it, ‘cause these things ain’t goin’ nowhere.”
“You really think so?” Rowan asked while setting his flashlight down so it lit up the ceiling. “What do you think Lee? I mean, you’re a nurse. You know a little bit about medical stuff and you worked in the E.R…do you think they’ll find a cure for…whatever this is?”
Lee entered the barn and continued on without acknowledging Rowan’s question. He didn’t stop as he passed them by, disappearing into the darkness of the back. In the far left corner there was an open stall with fresh hay strewn over the wood flooring. Lee headed for it with quiet determination.
“The fuck’s his problem,” he heard Lonnie say, but was too exhausted to care about dealing with the three of them at the moment.
As soon as his feet touched the plush pile, his legs collapsed. He sat with his back against the wall, staring up at the darkened rafters above. A heavy silence consumed him for the briefest moment while the others staked out their areas for the night. He should find some water, wash his face and hands, see if there was anything to eat since he hadn’t eaten at all that day, but he couldn’t move.
Then came a terrible scream.
His back straightened as he looked around. The others were settling into their places on the floor as if they hadn’t heard a thing, flashlights shining brightly around them for comfort.
Lee forced his body to relax back against the wall again. Surely the wannabe soldier would have been all over it if he had heard someone shouting. He seemed like the type of guy who enjoyed watching heads explode from the pull of his trigger. But whose scream was it? And why had no one else heard it?