by Karen Carr
I stepped over the 1000 foot mark feeling like I was passing some sort of dividing line between civilization and anarchy. For a brief moment, I felt terrified that my powers wouldn’t hold up outside the village, like the village was really the thing protecting us and it wasn’t me all this time.
There were more cars stopped on the road than I expected. The closer to town, the more cars were jammed on the street, off the street, on the median, crashed sideways, and upside down. It looked like there was a moment of panic where everyone tried to get out at the same time, but they were all too late.
The smell was horrendous and almost unbearable, making me want to go back to the village. I took out my yellow bandana, the one that Huck had given me, and tied it around my face. It was hard not to think of my sister when I saw a young girl, perhaps her size, lying face up on the ground in my path, the fresh ooze dripping from her eyes as a sign of a new kill.
The fresh bodies were getting thicker, so thick in fact that I had to start walking my bike around them. At less than a mile to my destination, I stopped and leaned my bike against a Ford F150 on top of a hill. I climbed up the bed of the truck, onto the roof and raised my binoculars. What I saw ahead shocked and frightened me. I could see the killing line where my aura met the undead. I could see the live zeroes coming toward me and then collapsing. I could hear a soft pop when their brains scrambled. There must have been three or four hundred of them approaching, and dying when they hit the invisible wall.
I couldn’t move.
More zeroes climbed over the ones that were dead and then died on top of them. More and more were coming and dying on top of the mass. By my standing in one spot, I was creating a mountain of zeroes. I felt relief in knowing that the powers were mine, I had a zero killing virus, but I also felt terror. There were so many coming at me.
The population of the whole town was around fifty thousand, with the greater area closer to a million. My little subdivision, Haverlyn Village, only had around six hundred families. I felt like they were all converging on me at once. When I studied them, I noticed they would form meandering packs, which meant I could be facing a meandering pack of thousands.
I decided to take a break on top of the truck to see if the zeroes would stop coming and to see if my virus would eliminate most of them before I arrived downtown. I considered honking the horn to attract them, but I didn’t have the courage to do that. An hour later, after I ate some crackers and drank a bottle of water, I decided to move on.
When I reached the pile of dead, I almost barfed at the smell. The mountain of zeroes was so thick and so high, that I didn’t know how to get around them. I most certainly didn’t want to climb over them, so I had no choice but to travel along their edge until I found a spot where I could squeeze through. I had to move twenty feet from the road and into the brush, all the while dragging my bike, to navigate around them.
Once I made it past the zero wall and back onto the road, I was able to ride my bike again. It took me a few more minutes to get to the downtown and Franklin Street. It was only another mile to Saudah’s, but the trip took a lot out of me. My pants were ripped where they were snagged by a bush, my knees bruised where I fell, and my hands were scraped.
I could tell by the sun that it was close to noon and I didn’t feel like slogging another mile, so I changed my plans and decided to look for a place to rest before I tried to reach Saudah’s. Truthfully, I was scared that I would find the dead body of my friend, and maybe even the corpse of Stan and I didn’t feel like facing that just yet.
As crowded with zeroes as the main road had been, the downtown looked completely empty and desolate. Normally, this would have been a depressing sight, but I felt encouraged by the isolation. This part of Franklin Street was older, with most of the shops being built over two hundred years ago.
The bookstore’s door was open, so I dismounted my bike and rolled it inside. I parked it out of sight behind the cashier’s counter and proceeded to check out the rows carefully. I knew this bookstore well. It had a basement and a second floor. First I went up and then I went down. When I was satisfied that I was the only one in the store, I closed the front door and went back upstairs where they had an old couch and two armchairs. I went to the couch, and fell right asleep.
I was woken up by a strange sound, one that I hadn’t heard in months, a woman’s blood curdling scream. It took me a while to remember where I was. For a brief moment, I forgot about the apocalypse and thought something entirely different was happening. When I heard the scream again, I jumped to my feet and raced to the window. I knew zeroes couldn’t be attacking her, because I was here, and while I was here she was protected.
What I saw from the window of the second floor surprised me. It wasn’t a girl at all. It was a boy, maybe fifteen, in the middle of the street being attacked by a couple of big dogs. They were grabbing for something in his arms, and he was not giving it up. I raced down the stairs, snatched my hatchet and raced out the door to help him. Before I could think of what I was doing, I swung the hatchet at one of the dogs. It barked out in pain as blood sprung from its side. The other dog ran off in a fright once it saw what I had done to its partner.
I couldn’t help but stare at the dog. I had never hurt an animal before. I was the kind of person to save them, even the snakes that we would find under our tents camping in the summer months back home. I reached down to try and see how deep the wound was, but the dog snapped at me. I dropped the ax and sat on the ground, immediately feeling completely overwhelmed by guilt and remorse.
“Thanks,” the boy said. I had forgotten about him. His leg was bleeding pretty badly.
“Did the dog?” I asked.
He shook her head. “No, I fell.” He reached over to grab the package that had fallen on the ground. “Dinner.” He was holding an open package of beef jerky, and his bag contained several dozen more packages of the same thing.
Suddenly the boy yelled out. “Don’t.” He was looking behind me and holding his hands out, palms up.
I felt something solid hit the back of my skull and then I felt my body falling forward, right where the dog lay dying. I dared not move. Instead, I tried to pretend that whomever had hit me had knocked me unconscious.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” the boy said. He was speaking to someone behind me.
“I heard you yell out,” another male voice said, sounding a little older but not much.
“Yea, because that dog was biting me. She hacked it,” the boy said.
Blood was trickling down my throat, making me want to cough, but I had to suppress it.
“Wow,” the other boy said. I could hear him come nearer. “With this thing?” He must’ve picked up the axe. “We could use this. Let’s get out of here, bro.” Someone kicked a rock and it bounced over my torso.
“We can’t just leave her here. She saved our dinner.” I heard crackling and then the sound of a zipper.
“Yea we can.” I felt a hand on my leg, it was moving dangerously close to my private parts.
“Get off of her, Maxwell,” the boy said.
“It’s been a long time, bro,” Maxwell said.
“It’s been never,” the boy retorted.
“Fine, let’s go,” Maxwell said. “Those zomboids are going to be on us any minute.”
“So we’re going to leave her here to be eaten?”
“I am.” I heard footsteps traipse off the other direction.
“Shit,” the boy said. “Sorry.” He patted my head. “If you were a little younger, he wouldn’t have left you,” he added.
I waited a few minutes until they were gone, and then I sat up and spat out the blood in my mouth. It was just me and the dead dog lying in the street and the sun was setting. They had taken my ax and left me to die. Little did they realize that I was the one who was keeping them alive—ungrateful little suckers. I didn’t need them to help me.
My head was still swimming, and I felt blood trickling down my face, but I thought
it best to move back to the bookstore before those hoodlums returned. I was pretty sure they wouldn’t come looking for me in a bunch of books. They probably had never cracked one open once they realized there was no more school.
I moved to my knees, and tried to push myself up, but I felt woozy again and my arms gave way. My stomach constricted and I hurled my last meal on the ground. It was clear that I wasn’t moving any time soon. I could have a concussion which would mean I was in serious trouble.
I sat back down on my rear and tried to focus on the street. Everything was blurry. The buildings and cars were waving in and out of my vision. Suddenly, I noticed a figure coming toward me from between two parked cars. The person was wearing a long hooded sheath dress and moved gracefully like a woman. Before I could get away, which I probably couldn’t do anyway, she was on me in a rush of fabric and enveloped me in her arms.
Chapter 12: Lily in Town
December 1st
Hightops
Downtown, Main Street
North of Haverlyn Village
I could tell by her touch that the woman wanted to help me. She pulled me to my feet and hoisted my arm around her shoulder. She was shorter than me by several inches, but still commanded a strength that I didn’t have and I was grateful to her for that.
“Hurry,” she whispered in my ears. “You have to stand.”
Without speaking again, she put her arm around my waist and moved us across the street to one of the other buildings. She brought me inside and made me climb the steps up to the rooftop restaurant. I knew the place well, having spent many a night there. In fact, Stan, Saudah, Mi-Yung, Ara and I had sat at the table near the edge a few short weeks before this all had started.
The woman helped me to a small cot in the corner of the room and sat down on a chair next to it. My vision was coming back again and I was feeling less queasy. The woman took off her hood and I could see that she was Asian. She had a fresh youth about her face, but seemed a little older than me, mostly because of her confidence.
“My name is Lily,” she said.
“I’m Helena, but my friends call me Hella.” Lily had a slight scar above her left eyebrow. It was still pink and fresh. Her hands were slender, and the knuckles on one were bruised. She had recently been in a fight.
“That boy hit you hard.” Lily found a cloth and a bowl of water to dab my face. “I heard the crack all the way over here.”
“Thanks for rescuing me.” The cold water trickled down my cheek and my neck, sending shivers down my spine.
“I didn’t do much of that. They were already gone. There’s a hoard of those creatures coming in from the north.” She turned my head and rinsed the wound. “My partner saw them. Those boys will all be eaten soon.” Her eyes showed a cold disregard for their life, but she saved me so there must have been some humanity left in her.
“Partner? There’s someone else here?” I asked.
Two more survivors, and those kids, I never expected to find anyone else downtown. It gave me hope for Saudah and Stan, but I was in no condition to continue my search. I glanced over at the table where my friends had sat and imagined them still there. We were discussing the cohabitation of relative strangers in the dorms and how it was one of the most interesting things about university life.
How college brought strangers together under one roof was similar to what the apocalypse did for me today. She took a bottle of hydrogen peroxide from the table. “Yes, Trevan, my fiancée I guess—that’s what he was before—actually he just proposed the night this all happened. He’s scouting. He thinks it will help convince me to...” she trailed off and poured the peroxide on my wound. It fizzed excessively. “How have you survived so long?”
“It’s a peculiar story,” I said and one I didn’t want to tell her before I met Trevan. What if he was a creep and I didn’t want them in the village? Once I met him, and if he was not violent, I would tell them the same story I told Huck and the Professor and invite them back to stay. But what right did I have to choose whom I would protect and whom I would let fall? I didn’t want any survivors to go undead, even if they were creepy, because I was here to save the earth.
“What did you do before this?” I asked.
She took off her cloak. Under it she was wearing baggy corduroys belted by a rope and a heavy knit sweater. A large bowie knife was sheathed at her side and a gun was holstered on the other.
“I am a visiting scholar.” She put a towel on the pillow of the cot and motioned for me to lay down.
“Where from, China, Korea?” I asked.
“No, Wisconsin,” she said, then seeming to notice my flushed embarrassment, she added, “but my parents are from Korea.”
“What did you teach?” I turned on my side when the pressure from the towel made my head wound throb.
“I taught history,” she said. “My specialty is the pre-revolutionary war United States. My partner was finishing his PhD in military history.” She smiled, like she was remembering a moment from her past.
“That could come in handy,” I said.
“How?” she asked. There was an angry tone in her voice, so I decided not to push the subject. It was obvious that someone who knew about military history would be able to help us out.
I heard heavy footsteps on the stairs and Lily rose in front of me. A man with black hair, pale skin and hollow blue eyes appeared.
“Trevan,” Lily said. She seemed to be blocking me from his view.
“They’re all over the place, like I told you Lily.” Trevan said. He walked over to the other side of the room and slammed his gear down. “I’m telling you, we’re doomed. We should just do it now.” He pulled out a gun and placed it on the table. I wasn’t sure what he meant by do it now, but I suspected he was thinking of ending his life. He seemed very angry and agitated and not like someone I wanted to be around.
“Trevan.” Lily said his name like a warning. “I want you to meet someone.”
“What?” Trevan said in a mixture of anger and surprise.
Lily moved from in front of the cot so that Trevan could see me. His eyes burned with anger and he reached for his gun, which he then pointed at me.
“Shit, Lily, what are you thinking?” he said. “Is she one of those punks?” His gun continued to waver in my direction, making me extremely nervous.
“No, Trevan. She was being attacked by them. I helped her escape.” Lily stood between me and Trevan and his pointing gun.
“Move,” he said. “Before she does something.”
“She’s not going to do anything,” Lily said. “She’s too dizzy to stand on her own.”
That was actually not true. I felt like I could stand. Having a gun pointed at my head cured me of the dizzies.
“Move,” Trevan said again, and then he pushed her aside.
“Trevan, stop,” Lily said.
He pointed the gun at my chest, a shaky finger on the trigger. A bullet was going to go through my heart. I jumped to my feet and fell to the floor. Lily was right. I was still too dizzy to stand on my own, but now I felt like I had to pee. I didn’t want to die like this, after all that I had been through.
“Lily, what does it matter?” Trevan said. He then took the gun and pointed it at her. “We agreed, you agreed. We have a pact.” He pointed the gun at his temple and back at her, then back at me. Beads of sweat were piling up on his forehead. “Remember?”
I’m thinking to myself their pact was a suicide pact and that I would be the unlucky victim, wrong place-wrong time-kinda girl. By the look on Lily’s face, she did not want to die. I had to do something to stop this nut, but I wasn’t strong enough to fight him off.
“I don’t want to do it anymore,” Lily said. She pointed at me. “If she can survive, we can.” Her words hurt my feelings. Did I look that meek? I managed to kill my neighbor, but not before he bit me. I would’ve been dead except for the virus thing. Lily was right again.
“We can’t survive the horde that is coming for us.” T
revan pointed out the window. I wondered if he was referring to the same horde I had just wiped out with my zero-killing virus, or if there was another horde gathering somewhere else.
“Yes we can all survive.” My voice was hoarse, so I cleared my throat. “I can show you where I have been living. It’s safe. We can surely get there before the horde.”
“How can it be safe?” Trevan asked, swinging the gun around. Lily and I ducked whenever it came in our direction. “Does it have a giant wall around it? Nothing is safe.”
“Yea, it has a wall,” I said running with his idea. “But the wall is invisible. Zombies die when they reach it.”
“You are bananas,” Trevan said, the gun wobbling in his hand.
“What do you mean, Hella?” Lily asked, sitting on the side of my bed, once again putting herself in between me and Trevan. I loved this woman.
“This little snake is probably setting us up,” Trevan said. “She’s probably one of them, pretended to get hit in the head. I bet they’re going to rob us.”
“Rob us of what?” Lily asked, turning toward her partner. She then turned to me. “I’m sorry, he’s not normally like this. He was perfectly ordinary before all this.”
“Why did you tell her that?” Trevan asked, his voice raising an octave. “I am normal now. This is normal, for this life. But, you know what? You are right. Nobody should go on living like this. It wasn’t intended. We need to all get out of here before we are doomed to Hell.”
Before I knew what was going on, and at the same time, Lily stood up and I heard a gunshot. Lily fell into Trevan’s arms, or did Trevan fall into Lily’s? Someone had been shot, but I didn’t know who. I saw blood. It was on both of them. The gun fell to the floor.