by Jason Beech
“Ah,” he sat on the grass they had flattened over many nights on this hill. “I’m just having some fun.”
Lizzy tried to express her wonder, but all she could manage was a mouth-flap.
“You look like a drowning fish,” he said, observing her from the corner of his eyes, keeping his body facing the thing chained to the tree.
The thing lurched forward, each time checked by its restraint tightening, making its head snap back. It kept trying, relentless, even as it weakened, never taking its red and cloudy eyes from them.
Lizzy paced, her arms wrapped round her body despite the eighty-odd degree weather. Her skin itched, especially round her neck.
“What do you mean you were having fun?” she asked. Each jerk of the chain made her shiver. She pushed Tilly’s entrapment out of her thoughts, and asked again, “What do you mean?”
He sighed as he stood, shaking his head.
“You have blood on your shirt, your shorts…”
He gave her a “follow me for a closer look” nod and stepped carelessly towards the thing. She didn’t budge for at least half-a-minute, then shuffled closer. It felt strange to have something look at her the way she once looked at a steak.
“What am I looking at?”
Frank switched his look constantly between her and the zombie, his eyes smirking. He put his fingertips close to the thing’s mouth, making it snap at them. He kept them out of range, just.
“Frank… please, what is this.”
“Don’t look at me,” he waved his hand. “Look at this clown.”
He pushed a finger into its cheek and pulled away again as it opened its mouth wide to snap. What? What did the thing have for her to look at? Frank extended his index finger, keeping it enough out of reach for the thing to now keep its mouth open like a trap, waiting for a prize to fall between its jaws.
“It has no teeth,” she said. “How did it bite? All that blood…”
He laughed at her, pulled the rifle from his shoulder and used the muzzle to lift its upper lip. “It never bit me. I knocked every tooth out.”
Her eyes narrowed, like she would at spiteful Johnny, the five-year old kid she used to babysit, who liked to pinch his one year old sister. His upper lip always squeezed up towards his nose as he did it. The little shit. “I’m just having some fun,” Johnny had said.
“He attacked you?”
“No, it was just lolling around like it probably did when it had a job. And don’t call it a he.”
“Wow,” she said. “You just hit it for the sake of it?”
“Don’t get all moral on me; the thing is nothing more than a punch bag now.”
He shook his head, the patronizing bastard. Something weird had happened to him since they had gone to her old home. Had one of those things bitten him? He’d had that red eye since they’d met. This behavior… she couldn’t make it out.
She placed her hands on his rifle. He flinched like a redneck whose manhood-size she questioned - in a bar, in front of his buddies.
“If we have any kind of future, Frank, let me have the gun.”
Maybe her calm tone got to him. More likely the vague promise of sex she always implied. If she’d raised her voice just an octave, she knew he would have pulled away from her and told her to go to hell. She stepped back a good ten yards, nestled the rifle’s butt into her shoulder, and looked down the barrel to the spot where its eyebrows met. Even zombies have rights, she thought, as she pulled the trigger.
***
HE DIDN’T speak to her for the rest of the day, spending his time looking through his stupid sniper scope, or whatever the hell he called it, looking for the man who betrayed him. Lizzy spent time looking at Wikipedia’s New Mexico page, feeling her chest get heavier with phlegm at the delay getting there. A couple of times she thought she heard the word “bitch” muttered. She wasn’t sure. She let it slide, but times like this made her go all British, calling him a “wanker’ under her breath.
The nightly pitter-patter of animals, happily free from the disaster hitting humanity with a sledgehammer, made her eyelids meet in a gradually longer embrace. Had her re-reading the same sentence without absorption. “Sure,” she responded to the paragraph as her eyes drooped, another sentence she’d never noticed, “wouldn’t I love to have somebody share my life, too.”
***
HEAVY FEET and a snort woke her beneath a moon-torched sky. She sat up, rubbing gunk from her eyelids. The picture book stars had a horn-shaped cut. Her eyes adjusted, her heart leapt. The devil stood before her, its horns towering above, like they accused her of survival. She scurried back, ignoring sharp stones puncturing little holes into her palms. She grunted a laugh. She needed it. She let a louder one escape, enjoying its luxury. She pushed herself up and approached this Lucifer. The elk stood its ground, maybe enjoying its lack of fear from humans. She worried about it being infected, but it looked healthy, so she edged closer, keeping her face pointing down in submission to its majesty, watching it from the corner of her eyes.
Lizzy must have worn the elk’s interest in her. It gave her a haughty snort and pounded away across the silvery hill to the woods bearding its chin. She wiped her cheek to remove its damp. The damp stilled her. Her tears had brimmed, but not spilled. Dew would make more than her cheek wet. Her other remained dry. She smelled the wet on her fingers. She smelled Frank’s yellow breath.
She fought and defeated a retch, holding it in her stomach for now. Her hands patted and searched. Her top had remained down when she woke up. Her black pants remained buttoned and seemingly untampered. Had sleep knocked her out so completely that he could have had his way without her knowing? Her fingers shook as she moved them inside her pants.
She pulled out, threw herself to the hardening ground, and dry-vomited.
“I am a bitch,” she said.
She squeezed her eyes to find him, but his patch only showed the press his body made. He had gone for a night walk, no doubt looking for Danny and cussing her out for not letting him pop hard metal through the zombie’s eye-socket.
“I’m such a bitch.”
Frank must have kissed her in the night, just a sloppy peck on her cheek. She knew, despite his hard man exterior, that he craved a little human warmth. And all she gave him were vague little hints about a possible roll in long grass. That thought made Lizzy wrap her arms around her body. She wanted that human contact too. She wanted a man allover her, to make her head fizz and pop reality’s fuse if just for an hour or so. Like Connor had all that time ago. But Frank? Those teeth, that eye, that personality.
“You bitch,” she called out. “What a fucking bitch. Frank’s right.”
He was all she had. She was all he had. No matter what their personal flaws, they were the only two bodies left in the world that could repopulate it. And, man, had he been patient. Treated her space with the utmost respect.
“Let me just do this. He can have me right now.”
***
LIZZY STARED ahead as if looking elsewhere would make her see that cracked left eye of his as an infection. What if he had STDs popping out of his crotch? Now she had decided to let him have his way, it all crystallized. She didn’t know anything about medicine. No doctors survived, unless they had all scurried to a bunker deep within the earth along with a government she knew nothing about. If this man had anything, then…
“I’m a bitch,” she spat. “Just do it.”
Coming out of the long grass on to the town’s tarmac felt like she had stepped from the sea on to a rabid island. The streets had corners, nooks, places of concealment for flesh-hungry former class-mates and other people she had once known as animal-only eaters. She walked past a thing, one arm wrapped around a fire hydrant, that wore a purple hand-knitted cardigan remarkably similar to one Mrs Schultz wore, the receptionist at the community bank. A bullet hole had punctured her skull. Deep sockets, once windows to a soul, looked up at the dawn. Whatever spirit was up there had abandoned down here, leaving her
alone with…
“Stop it,” she said. She undid another button. He could have a nickel-drop cleavage to look at when he saw her. She’d enjoy his face, enjoy his eyes explore her body, enjoy the light clicking on when he realized what she offered.
If she could find him.
She instead found Danny, slumped against the red-streaked wall of the pharmacy, his shattered front teeth showing where the bullet had taken him out. She poked him with her bat, just to make sure. She stepped back and looked above the pharmacy, noting the apartment. Maybe Frank had found Danny’s place. Good, she sighed, maybe we can now head west.
“Frank?” she called.
Movement caught her attention in the pharmacy window. A reflection. She looked behind, heart pumping zombie milkshake round her system. Distorted faces pressed against grilled windows in the red-brick fire station opposite. At least ten of them did their undead dance at the sight of Lizzy, maybe communicating to each other in their grunty language about who would eat which part of her. So this is how he spends time away from me, she thought. He’s rounding them up. Maybe he plans to cremate them all at once. Like he planned to clear the place so he could lay roots in this town.
“Frank?” she shouted, more agitated at that thought than the scraping feet across the road. He had to have found his money by now.
Lizzy explored the back, a parking lot free from cars. A rusty stairway led up to the apartment. What if he had taken one chance too many and he awaited her with snapping teeth? She lifted the bat head-height. At the top she rested a shoulder against the flaky green door. Controlled her breathing. Negotiated it down with positive thoughts. He had to live; they had a family to start.
She turned the handle and pulled. Thankful it opened squeak-free, she stepped in, leaving a hand on the inside handle. She narrowed her eyes for something to keep the door open, to let a little light in and allow her to find her way back if an emergency had her running for the open. She found a shoe, a moccasin which the apocalypse had not rendered any more desirable. She wedged it between the wall and door, and crept forwards deeper into the apartment.
Red finger marks streaked along the wall. The color’s vibrancy had faded with age. The hallway carpet’s edges gathered against the skirting board, but it felt dry. She heard a grunt coming from the far room. She prayed to a God she had long given up on that it was Frank. Another grunt, each one increasingly drowned by the thumping in her ears. Broken plates and mugs, upturned chairs, and a flatscreen TV littered the floor across the living room and kitchen, breaking her attention away from the goal as she stepped into relatively soundless floorspace.
Another grunt almost made her scramble, but she grabbed the bedroom’s doorframe with her left hand to steady herself. She pulled enough bravery from her depths. Felt like her stomach folded in on itself, curling up her food pipe. She’d avoided enclosed spaces for much of the last five years. I ought to sit outside, waiting for him to exit, she thought. She couldn’t now, she feared him dead, or turned. Something in this room was enjoying a feast. She could hear a slurp.
She mouthed an “Oh my God,” repeated it half-a-dozen times, let it fill her saliva, then swallowed it down into her gut. What God? If he existed, he gave her no hand. He had left her alone. Killed her parents. Killed her little beauty.
She maneuvered herself off the doorframe, used her left hand to push the door slowly. Morning light and a torch lying on the bed torch, lying on the bed spotlighted Frank. For some reason he stood naked, examining his middle finger, before reaching over the bed and sticking it … in a woman’s mouth. A woman… a…
Jealousy spiked Lizzy’s frame, making her heart judder. Where’d she hidden all this time? Had she just arrived from elsewhere, unable to stand the loneliness of hills, maybe needing the company of mankind’s constructions? She looked down, seeing a dozen broken teeth lying on the floor, but not registering any of them. She peeked again, watched him thrust his pelvis into her a few times. Gritted her teeth thinking she was Frank’s ex-girlfriend, Clarissa. The woman he had pined for a few times. She left them to it.
Late season humidity formed sweat beads on her forehead. Maybe anger caused each pop and roll. She sat at the bottom of the rusting steps, self-consciously running fingers through her matted hair. She’d never smoked, but she could have done with a cigarette now. Something to occupy her hands. Something to stop her touching her face, her scalp, making those sores bigger with each stroke.
“You ass, Frank,” she spat. “I offered you the chance to remake the world. Fine, do it with that whore.”
Lizzy thought about staying there until he came out, just to show her moral superiority. Ten minutes later and he remained inside. He must have had practice. He certainly lasted. Or maybe he, they, indulged in a bit of post-coital pillow-talk. A little intimacy. That drove her to stomp the streets, instinct making her avoid narrow side-streets.
She checked the old rusting truck in the gas station, making sure nothing lurked in its back seats. The keys had never been moved from the ignition. She looked through the smashed driver’s window. Empty of danger - the driver probably dragged to dinner, or turned. She put a foot on the vehicle’s body to help force the door wide, then pulled herself into the driver’s seat. She turned the key. Not even a splutter. She jumped out, grabbed an empty gas can, opened it, took the pump, fitted the nozzle into the can’s opening, and pressed the trigger. It filled half the can.
“Damn it.” She wiped a tear and angrily shook it from her finger. “There have to be survivors in New Mexico. Have to be.” She thought about the added lines in Wikipedia.
She capped the can and headed back down the street, wondering what she’d say to him when he finally emerged. What she’d say to that woman. She checked out each car littering the road, trying to guess which would have the best fuel efficiency. She halted at the fire station, looked through the barred windows at the undead watching her. They stood still except for one - a teenager chomping his teeth for her flesh. He banged his head red against the bar, reaching a hand through the broken glass, each attempted grab lacerating his arm.
Lizzy let a bitter smile rise. Maybe she should spoil Frank’s fun. She played with the can’s cap.
***
FRANK SAT at the edge of the bed, pulling his socks on, cussing Lizzy until all the emphasis on the letter F made his lower lip tired of battering against his teeth. He moved on to calling her a bitch for reducing him to this.
“Yeah, we can start a fucking family… when, bitch?”
He pressed his finger with his other hand’s digits, stood, and pulled the chain keeping the undead woman tied to the bed tighter. He’d wrapped the chain round the bed’s frame and mattress a few times, keeping her in place while he did so by handcuffing a leg and an arm to a couple of bedposts diagonal from the other. She gnashed her toothless gums at him, not looking quite as attractive now he’d gone limp. Her blonde hair, such a sexual beacon to him in his need, now looked like straw. She stunk like meat left in a dumpster for a week. She looked nothing like Clarissa now he could think with the head lying on top of his shoulders. His shoulders hunched thinking about his ex, wondering… No… she was dead, or undead, like everybody else.
He cringed. “What was I thinking?”
I have Lizzy, he thought. A little patience and I’ll be fine.
He had to get back to her. “She’s probably awake, hopefully wondering where I am.” He hoped she asked once he got back. He looked forward to seeing her copper hair, on fire when the sun hit each strand.
He slipped on his boots, gave himself the once-over in the closet’s floor-to-ceiling mirror, grabbed the rifle, and placed the bag over his shoulder. He’d never found the money, and he probably never would. Killing Danny had felt good for seconds. The splash of blood from the exit wound at the back of his head gave him the thrill which had waned with all those other zombie head shots. The revenge had a sweet tang for mere moments, turning bitter quickly at the realization he had wasted time, had riske
d Lizzy’s embitterment. He yearned for warm flesh, suddenly fearing a lack of company on possible lonely nights ahead.
As he edged the door open, he heard breathing, ascending to a groan, coming not from behind – not from the thing he’d just boned - but from the living area. He slammed the door. Too late. It hit an arm shooting through the gap. It grabbed his shirt and pulled.
“Shit,” he cried, leaning back while still pushing the door toward the frame.
The thing on the bed started shaking, rattling the chains, squirming to escape, grunting for fresh flesh. He pulled away from the grip. The hand kept a cloth-sized patch of his shirt tight in its fingers. It shouldered the door open, swaying for a second, but excited it had no barrier between him and meat.
Frank stood, getting his breath back, wondering how the damn thing had escaped from the fire station. He heard more shuffling. A second zombie’s momentum pushed the first into the room. Another followed, and another. All of them? They’d escaped. How? The rifle slid from his shoulder, but fell to the floor from his shaking hands. He knelt to pick it up, brought it to his shoulder, and aimed. He felt like he was at the Alamo, but hoped for a better outcome.
He fired. The first one’s neck snapped as the bullet punched its forehead. How many had he rounded up? Twenty? Thirty? Did he have enough bullets to finish them off before he had to reload? That time might give them a chance to finish him off.
He popped the second one’s eye. It fell on top of the first, its goo forming sludge in the cream carpet. Three came in together. A bite of blood would make them faster. But then he would change into one of them anyway. He worried about his finger. Had he left any remnants of her teeth intact? He’d definitely felt a nip.
He gasped and scurried back into the wall, turning to shoot at the three zombies coming in from his left. Fuck, waste of a bullet, he thought after the closet’s mirrored-door finished falling to the floor. He wasted the three, heard more coming, smelled burning. Burning. What could have started burning? How could these brainless goons have started a fire?