"This doesn't look good," Ali whispered to Marcus.
Marcus nodded.
Eddie parked right in front of a tan house. "This is it," his voice quivered.
Two cars were parked in the driveway. Both covered with a layer of pollen. They looked like they hadn’t moved in a few days.
“They’re home?” Jesse said.
“Looks like it,” Eddie said. “That’s Lolo’s Maxima.” He looked around at the group in the back of the truck. Cheerful, upbeat Eddie was replaced with a new skittish version of himself. “I’ll go ring the bell.”
“No,” Marcus said. “We’ll all go. You don’t know what’s out there.”
Eddie nodded.
The road-weary travelers emptied out of Josefina. Eddie led them to the front door. He ran the bell. Nothing. He rang again. Still no response. He knocked on the door…nothing.
“Look,” Vic said. A side window was broken.
Eddie’s face lost all of its color. He knocked harder on the door.
“Hold on,” Marcus said. He backed up. Then, he charged the door, extended his right leg, and kicked it open.
Eddie stepped through the doorway first. Marcus followed. The house was silent.
“Lourdes…Matilda…Victor,” Eddie shouted.
Nobody responded.
The group walked into the living room with their weapons not drawn. They found nothing but turned-over furniture and foul smells.
“Don’t leave my side,” Marcus told Ali and Vic.
I should pull out my knife, but I don’t want to alarm Eddie, Marcus thought.
Eddie walked into the kitchen. He stopped. Marcus crept up behind him and found him staring at the white tile on the floor that was covered with speckles of blood.
Marcus couldn’t wait any longer. He took out his knife. Eddie looked at him.
“Grab something,” Marcus said to Eddie.
He went over to a knife block and pulled out a butcher’s knife.
“Upstairs?” Eddie asked Marcus.
Marcus wanted to say no, but he knew Eddie was a good man. And he would want the same courtesy done for him. Marcus nodded. He took the lead.
The kid’s bedrooms both had nothing but clothes and toys all over the floor.
“This is the master bedroom,” Eddie said. He tried to open the door. It was locked.
Marcus threw his shoulder into the door. It cracked a little.
A shout came from the other side of the door.
“Open up, it’s me, Lolo…your father,” Eddie said.
“No.” It was a man’s voice.
“Teddy?” Eddie said. “It’s me.”
Marcus charged the door one more time. It popped open. A mattress was up against the door.
Teddy was on the carpeted floor in his blood-stained pajama bottoms that fell off his emaciated and dehydrated frame.
“Teddy, where’s Lourdes? Where are the kids?” Eddie said.
Teddy stumbled towards Eddie and grabbed his shoulders. He immediately began to cry.
“I’m sorry,” Teddy said.
“Sorry? What happened?” Eddie said.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated.
Eddie drew his knife. “Tell me what happened! Where are the--”
“They came,” Teddy said.
Ali, Vic, Jesse, and Christina stood behind them and said nothing. Marcus stepped toward Eddie and Teddy. He felt Eddie getting increasingly angrier.
“Who came?” Marcus said.
“Those things,” Teddy said.
“With the green eyes?” Ali said.
Teddy pointed at Ali. “Eyes! Their eyes. Not green. Yellow.”
“Yellow eyes?” Vic said to Ali.
Eddie had enough. “Where’s my LoLo?”
A trembling Teddy pointed down the hall to the spare bedroom. Eddie looked down the hallway.
“Don’t go,” Teddy said.
Eddie marched down the hallway.
“Don’t!” Teddy shouted.
“Eddie,” Marcus called out. “Maybe you should listen.”
Anyone who spoke might as well have been speaking another language. Eddie couldn’t hear anyone or anything. He felt as though he was floating down the hallway. He reached out for the door knob and opened the door.
It was Lourdes, Victor, and Matilda. They were in the room slowly pacing back and forth. Their skin had rotted. Lourdes’s neck snapped as it turned to her father. Her brown hair was half in her face.
Teddy shuffled down toward Eddie.
“Baby,” Eddie said with tears in his eyes. “My babies. What did you do?”
The two children still in their school uniforms of green cardigan sweaters, grey pants for Victor, and plaid dress for Matilda stood close to their mother’s side.
“I tried to save them,” Teddy said.
Marcus stood behind Eddie and saw what happened to his loved ones. “What the fuck?”
They were not like the creatures from the campus. They were the undead and had bright yellow eyes. They plodded toward Eddie.
“We gotta leave,” Marcus said.
“That’s my baby,” Eddie said.
“Not anymore,” Marcus said.
Lourdes reached her arms out and attempted to grab Eddie. He put out his hands as if he was going to hug her.
Marcus knocked her down.
“What are you doing?” Eddie shouted.
“That’s not your daughter,” Marcus said.
Matilda and Victor came towards Eddie. Marcus pushed Eddie out of the room and closed the door. Teddy, Ali, Vic, Jesse and Christina stood in the hallway.
“What happened?” Ali said.
“We have to go,” Marcus said. “Now.”
“We can save her,” Eddie said.
The zombies pounded on the door.
“No,” Marcus said. “Everybody to the truck.”
Teddy grabbed Eddie. “Take me with you.”
Eddie stopped in his tracks.
“I tried to save them,” Teddy said.
“You did this,” Eddie said. He plunged his knife deep into Teddy’s chest.
“Eddie, no!” Marcus said.
Teddy stumbled down the hall to the room and opened the door. Lourdes embraced him and sank her teeth into his shoulder. He wailed. Then, Matilda and Victor clamped onto his leg.
“Shit!” Ali said.
“Let’s go!” Marcus said.
The group raced down the staircase. Jesse was the first to make it to the bottom floor. He panicked and opened what he thought was the front door. It was the garage.
As soon as the door swung open a gang of zombies pushed the door open sending Jesse backwards onto the stairs and into Christina, knocking her down and making Vic stumble.
“Fuck!” Jesse said.
One of the zombies landed on him. Vic launched himself over the fallen Christina and sunk his knife in the zombie’s skull, killing it. There were ten more zombies pushing their way out of the garage.
In the hallway, Lourdes and the children were now joined by a transformed Teddy as they made their way towards the group on the staircase. The group was now cornered by two groups of attacking zombies.
“We gotta go upstairs,” Ali shouted.
Jesse rose to his feet and pulled out his knife. He stabbed a zombie in the chest.
“The head,” Vic said.
Then, Jesse drove his knife through the bottom of the zombie’s chin.
Vic helped Christina get up as she screamed hysterically.
Upstairs, Marcus kicked Victor in the side of the head sending the child zombie into Lourdes and Matilda knocking them down.
Eddie pushed the Teddy zombie up against the side of the hallway and stabbed him in the right eye killing him for good.
Marcus charged Lourdes.
“Don’t kill her!” Eddie said.
Marcus looked back at Eddie. Then, he drove his knife through the bottom of her chin.
“No!” Eddie shouted.
Eddie
jumped on Marcus. Marcus subdued him and pushed him to the ground as he cried.
“She’s gone,” Marcus said.
The rest of the group made it upstairs as the Victor and Matilda zombies stood up and came toward Eddie and Marcus. Ali and Vic walked up behind them and dispatched them both with their knives.
Marcus looked up at Ali and Vic. “How bad is it?”
“Real bad.”
Some zombies from the garage slowly made it upstairs.
Marcus turned to Eddie. “How do we out of here?”
“I don’t know,” Eddie said. “We can’t go out the windows.”
Four zombies came down the hallway as the rest of the zombies climbed the stairs.
“Hello,” an old white man wearing dark Cataract glasses said at the front door. He stood with an elderly black man who had a full head of grey hair tucked under a beige bucket hat and a grey scraggily beard, and an Asian woman. The first old man stepped through the doorway.
“I think we should go,” the old lady said. “Nurse Gibson isn’t here.”
“This sure doesn’t look right,” the second old man said.
“Hello,” the first old man said again.
He got the attention of the zombies on the stairs who reversed course and made their way back to the ground level.
“What the?” Jesse said as he watched the zombies on the stairs move back down.
This might be the only opening we have, Marcus thought.
“Now,” Marcus shouted. They attacked the four zombies and made short work of them and moved over to the staircase as the zombies walked down.
One of the zombies swiped at the old man wearing the glasses. He grabbed a hold of him and bit his arm.
“Oh my God!” the old lady said.
“Dammit,” the second old man said.
“Help me,” the old man with the glasses said.
“We need to get the stepping,” the second old man said to the old lady. He walked slowly onto the lawn and tripped over the garden hose. “Shit motherfucker.” His bucket hat flew off his head.
The group from the stairs snuck up behind the distracted zombies and began stabbing them in the base of their craniums. Then, they pushed them down the stairs. Their bodies piled up at the base of the staircase.
Marcus made it to the bottom first. “Out the door,” he said.
Two of the zombies cornered the old lady up against Lourdes’s Maxima. Vic knocked one of the zombies down. Marcus stabbed the other.
“Are you okay?” Ali asked the old lady.
She looked at him. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and then turned yellow. Her body jerked around violently as she convulsed.
“She’s turning,” Marcus said.
A zombie lurched toward the old man on the lawn as he crawled away. The zombie closed in on him as he kicked it in the chest while lying on his back. The blow knocked it down.
“Help,” the old man said to the group as they ran toward Josefina and began getting in one by one.
The zombie got up and again gave chase to the old man. Ali walked up behind the zombie and stabbed it in the head.
“Come on,” Ali said.
The man attempted to get to his feet. He grabbed his hat off of the lawn. Ali pushed the him onto the truck. Then, he climbed on. Jesse peeled off down the once tranquil suburban street.
Chapter Six
“Pull over,” Marcus said to Jesse.
Jesse pulled Josefina onto the shoulder of the highway.
They’d been driving for twenty minutes without saying a word. Eddie might not have blinked even once.
“What were those things?” Ali said.
Vic fixed his mouth to say something. Then, he realized what he was about to say and shrugged instead. “I don’t know.”
“Who the hell are you?” Marcus asked the old man.
“Raymond Washington,” he said.
Eddie stood up with his fist balled and stepped toward Raymond. “What were you doing at my daughter’s house?”
“Nurse Gibson? She was my friend. And my nurse,” Raymond said. “After everything went to shit, me and my two friends left the home. People started dying. We tried to find safety. Went to Joe’s son’s house. He wasn’t there. I have no family. Janet had no family. So, we thought Nurse Gibson would help us.”
Raymond looked around at all of the faces. “Where is she? Is she?”
“Yes,” Marcus said.
“Oh,” Raymond said. “Shit.” He began to shake his head. He looked at Eddie. “She was a remarkable woman.”
Eddie wanted to say “thank you”, but he wasn’t ready to accept his Lolo was gone. He sat back down.
“This shit is all the way fucked,” Ali said.
“There’s no place to go,” Christina said. “Nobody is alive. There’s monsters, zombies, killer coyotes. What else can we do?”
“Killer coyotes?” Raymond said.
Ali looked at him and nodded.
“I still have to get home,” Marcus said. “Me and my boys are going home. I know that much.”
“What about us?” Jesse said.
Marcus stared at him as he searched for a response. He didn’t want them to become his responsibility as well.
“My uncle’s probably dead in Philadelphia,” Christina said. “Everybody is dead. Everybody I know is dead. And I’m here with strangers on a food truck.”
“Well…do you wanna die?” Eddie asked her.
Would that be the worst thing? Christina thought. She didn’t respond to Eddie.
“They can come with us,” Ali said.
Marcus looked at him.
“They can,” Ali continued. “It’s crazy as fuck out there. But we’re more effective if we travel together. We’ve all seen a lot of death. And who knows, if our home is still there.”
“But—” Marcus said.
“No, let me finish,” Ali said. “Christina is right, her uncle might not be there. Eddie’s family is gone. Jesse has nobody. Raymond is by himself. We might have to realize that this is it.” He pointed around to everyone on the truck.
“I’ll go with you,” Christina said.
“Shit…I ain’t doing a goddamn thing,” Raymond said. “Plus who else wants an old man.”
“I’m all in,” Jesse said. He turned to Eddie.
“Sure, we can take Josefina,” Eddie said.
Ali turned to Marcus. “We’re not alone.”
Marcus was part mad at Ali. But happy he saw him take lead. My son is maturing, Marcus thought.
“I guess that’s it. We’re all going to New York City,” Marcus said.
“I’m driving.” Jesse hopped in the driver’s seat.
The food truck pulled off of the shoulder and onwards to New York City.
In theory, Marcus could empathize with Eddie. But he didn’t want to think about it. Because he felt if he thought about it, the same fate would end up being his reality too. And everything Marcus has put himself through since the earthquake was to prevent himself and his loved ones from experiencing, Eddie’s hurt.
Eddie had lost everything in one big swoop. The only thing that he had to look forward to: his family. His only daughter and adorable grandchildren transformed into monsters, and he witnessed them get slain.
He’s doesn’t want to live any longer, Marcus thought as stared down the desolate highway. Could you blame him?
Marcus doesn’t know what he would do if anything happened to Ali. And he would definitely second guess whether he should continue on if Nadine was longer living. He can’t fathom being alone in this world and only left with the guilt of letting them down and not being there to protect them.
He thought about his wife in particular. He refused to let himself think about her too much. But he missed her. Her syrupy voice. Her crooked smile. The way she smiled. Her walk. The way she looked in her work clothes after a rough day at work.
He quietly chuckled to himself. He thought about how in the almost thirty years he kne
w Nadine that he has never won an argument with her.
That’s what I get for marrying a lawyer, he thought.
He passed a sign that read Silver Springs, Maryland. He pressed Josefina’s gas pedal down.
There are no cars out here, he thought. I have to get home to my wife. I have to get my son back home.
Chapter Seven
Marcus drove Josefina up to the North River Tunnel entrance.
“Damn,” Marcus said.
“What do we do?” Ali said from the passenger’s seat.
The tunnel entrance was blocked off with cars stacked up on top of one another.
“Stay here,” Marcus said to Ali.
“What’s wrong?” Eddie said from the back of the truck.
“The tunnel,” Marcus said.
“Huh? What about the tunnel?” Vic said.
“Come take a look at this with me,” Marcus said to Eddie.
Eddie and Marcus got out of the truck and inspected the tunnel. Some of the cars were flipped over. There was debris falling.
“You think we can drive over this?” Marcus asked Eddie.
Eddie shook his head. “No way.”
“We’ll go on foot,” Marcus said.
“How long would it take to drive around this?” Eddie said.
“The bridges are out in the open. I don’t trust them. We’ll be exposed,” Marcus said. “Whoever did this doesn’t want people getting into the city.”
“Or getting out,” Eddie said. He stepped closer to the tunnel entrance. “It looks like the toughest part is the opening. We get over this, then we can walk through.”
“It’s only about a mile long.” Marcus put his ear up to the tunnel. “I don’t hear anything.”
“You gonna tell them?” Eddie asked Marcus. “Some of them might not want to take the risk.”
Marcus lowered his head. “I know.”
“I’ll tell them,” Eddie stomped toward the food truck. Eddie had already witnessed Marcus’s short fuse. So he stepped into the position of being the diplomat of the group.
Eddie stepped onto the truck.
“What’s the deal? Why’d we stop?” Vic said.
“We have a problem,” Eddie said.
Everyone began to reach for their weapons.
Scattered Screams: (The Disruption, Book One) Page 9