Dorothy stops talking. Like Puddles she seems spent after letting her story go. She looks up at us with sad eyes and asks, “Does that answer your question, John?”
“Call me Doom,” John replies.
JESSE
It started with a bark.
That’s how I remember it. The end began with a bark, and then everything went real bad real fast. Now I know that when Naked barks, it means there’s danger nearby. Mom hates yappy little dogs so she trained Naked to bark only at danger. This meant that Naked only barked when a fox was trying to get into the rabbit hutch, or if there was a big buck in our yard (I don’t know what the big deal is, but I guess Naked thinks they’re dangerous) or when we forgot we let her out and closed the door on her, or that one time when someone tried to break in our house really, really late at night after we went to bed.
And now she only barks when the zombies come.
But those other guys, the guys that look at Mom with angry eyes, they didn’t understand Naked’s bark. I guess if you can misunderstand something somebody said then you can misunderstand something a dog says. Poor Naked; I know how she feels. People misunderstand me all the time…like the time I asked Mom through her bathroom door why she was in the bathroom and she said she was trying to make herself pretty for her date with Dad and I said “Oh, that’s why it’s taking so long,” and Hou said that was a mean thing to say. All I meant was that when she puts on makeup she looks like someone else and like a good Halloween costume it can take a long time to look like someone else.
So Naked barked that there was something new going on and the guy called Andrew said, “Look! They’re frozen again! We can get more kits!” At first I felt happy inside because I was tired of being hungry and thirsty and Mom was always afraid they would start fighting over food again. But Mom didn’t look happy like the others. She looked both mad and scared and she started yelling, “Don’t open those doors!” over and over again.
“There are still split kits out there! I can see them!” shouted one of the ones KC and Hou call drifters.
“She’s barking out a warning, not an opportunity!” KC shouted back.
Then Houston roared “They’re bait! Can’t you see it’s a trap?” And while they hollered, Naked kept barking and barking.
“But they’re frozen! You proved they can’t hurt you when they’re frozen!” That drifter has a point. It felt almost as cold as it did on the day Houston got those split kits. We’d been walking around wearing all the clothes we could find just to keep warm. I remember I had two pairs of socks on my hands and four socks on each foot that morning.
Then everything started happening at once. It was fast but at the same time it was slow, like that time we were in a car accident and everything we couldn’t do anything about happened in slow motion. First Andrew’s flunkies started to rush at the doors, pushing and stepping on anyone in the way. Houston and Kaboom and KC started to fight the people who were pulling the furniture away from the doors but Mom yelled at them to stop and join her at the doors to the theater. She started barking orders at them, but I couldn’t hear what she was saying over the noise of furniture being pulled apart and thrown to the floor. Somebody must have heard what she said because some of the people from the Dumb Luck Club started to work together, dragging footlockers full of split kits into the theater. Normally Andrew would be complaining about this but he was too busy ordering people to tear down the wall of stuff we put up to keep the zombies out.
Mom had me right by her side with her arm tight around me and Houston was holding Naked’s collar while she barked. I looked around to see who was with us. There was KC, Mouse, Nadia, Nemesis, Doom, and Kaboom. We were side by side like a human wall standing in the doorway of the theater; it was just us between the wild crowd and the supplies. It was like “The Gang’s All Here” but wait…where was Granny? Where was Mr. Cromwell? Where was Linus?
Where was Sarah?
Oh crumbs, I thought. She was caught up in the crazy-people crowd bunched up by the front doors. Mr. Cromwell had her up on his shoulders and was trying to make his way towards us, but there were too many people pushing the other way for them to get anywhere. He tried to elbow people to the side, but he couldn’t shove them away because Sarah wouldn’t let his one hand go and he was holding Granny with his other hand. Granny couldn’t push anyone away because her other hand was holding Linus’s while Linus’s other hand held onto her blanket. It made my insides hurt watching Sarah and not being able to go to her. She was looking right back at me with frightened eyes and holding onto Mr. Cromwell’s hand so tight it went white. Her eyes were really, really big and shiny like a bush-baby’s...a bush baby that’s about to get shot.
We were all calling out to them and Mr. Cromwell shouted right back to us “Don’t worry! We’ll get there!” but they didn’t. They couldn’t reach us before the last stick of furniture was taken away from the doors. And that was when things speeded up. I mean really speeded up. Things started happening so fast it was like for each second that passed, something new and horrible happened.
The first second: they opened up the door.
The next couple of seconds: the zombie nearest the door unfroze suddenly (Houston was right!) and bit Andrew.
The next three seconds: Andrew turned around and bit the two people closest to him.
Two seconds later: those people bit the three or four closest to them. One of them was Linus, still holding onto Granny’s hand. But where was her blanket?
Five seconds later: the chain reaction of biting sped up. People were too close to each other to get away. Stuff happened so quickly the guys at the back couldn’t see what was happening to the guys at the front, so they didn’t run away before getting bit.
Two seconds Later: Houston and Mom screamed, “Dorothy!” and we saw Granny get bit.
One More Second: KC screamed, “Mr. Cromwell!” and Mr. Cromwell got bit.
A split second later: We all screamed, “Sarah!” and then the theater doors slammed shut
A split-split second later: We all screamed, “Doom!” as he locked the doors with the padlocks from the lockers and then threw the key far off into the seats.
The screaming stopped. Naked stopped barking. And then all was quiet except for the sound of Naked whining.
KC
We stand here, staring at each other, too shocked to say or do anything at first.
Part of me wants to kill Doom for locking Sarah out like that, but part of me feels he just might have saved our lives. That doesn’t stop us from yelling at him. Nemesis is the first to advance, her fists tightly clenched like she’s ready to punch him out. “You left Sarah out there! You left Dorothy and Cromwell and Linus and you left Sarah out there!”
Doom stands his ground. “You saw what happened to Linus and Dorothy and Cromwell! I just saved you from having to watch Sarah die as well.” He says this with the best big-boy voice he can muster, but a slight waver in his tone gives away how much he must be shaking inside. I watch these two face off and can feel the heat of raw emotion; and while I watch I remember my mom telling me once that it is easier to let yourself feel anger than heartache.
Mom’s eyes are blazing with rage, but she says nothing. She’s taking slow, even breaths in an attempt to calm herself down. I look around and see the rest are in various stages of shock. Mouse and Nadia are sweating and hyperventilating. Houston and Kaboom are looking down hard at the floor as if there’s a solution to be found between their feet. Jesse is sitting on the floor with her knees tucked under her chin and she’s rocking back and forth with unfocused eyes. As I look at the effects of Doom’s actions, I wonder just how much worse it would have been to see Sarah bitten.
Nemesis and Doom are facing each other, their faces just inches apart. To my surprise, it’s Nemesis who’s the first to cave. I can see her shoulders start to heave as her body gives in to a soul-twisting sob. It tears at our minds and hearts as her mournful wail echoes throughout the theater. “She’s just
a child!” she groans. “She’s a little girl, and we left her to die.”
That was it for us. Whatever shred of strength we had to cling on to gets drowned in an ocean of grief. We collapse to the floor one by one and disappear behind floods of tears. There are no hugs, no reassuring touches, no leaning on each other. We are adrift in our own worlds, hurting too much to reach out to anyone else. We howl and cry and sob, and as we weep the sounds of shuffling and scuffling outside the doors stop, as if the recently dead are listening in on our collective sorrow.
I feel like I will never be able to lift my head again, but eventually my tears are spent, and all I can picture is the little girl we’ve abandoned. “Little girl lost,” is how I used to think of her, the child who was ten going on fifty after losing her family in a rush to get here. I look over to Jess and see that she’s now lying on the floor on her side, her legs still tightly tucked under her chin, her eyes screwed shut. Mom’s sitting Indian style cradling Jesse’s head in her lap, her own head bowed down low over Jesse’s, her hair partially covering her face like the branches of a weeping willow. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Houston scooting sideways to join them.
I crawl over until I’m close enough to lay my head on Mom’s shoulder. I take one of Jesse’s tense hands in mine, carefully unfolding each finger from her tightly balled-up fist until I can intertwine my fingers with hers. Houston takes the other and does the same, but Jesse’s not holding on to either of our hands; she just goes limp. She’s breathing though, the deep full breaths of a child who’s tumbled down a mineshaft of exhaustion.
I’m ready to give in to that myself. This feels like the disaster fatigue we experienced the first time we survived the dead, right after we reached Ghost’s house. Ah, Ghost. I expect to feel the usual sharp pang of loss at his memory, but I’m all out of feelings. In their place is a trickle of tears and the numb thought of what he’d do if he were here. Would he have shut the door on Dorothy and Mr. Cromwell? On Linus? On Sarah? Could he have figured out something better to do that would have saved us all? I doubt it. I don’t think there are any solutions, and I don’t want to backslide into the same trap others fall into when they give the departed superhuman qualities that didn’t exist when they were alive.
I feel movement all around me and notice that the others are dragging themselves over to our little family group. We’ve cried ourselves out on our own and now there’s a need to be part of something, a need to touch someone just to make sure they’re real and to be accepted in return. One by one they join us, some only resting a hand on one of our arms, some leaning against each other for support. We rest there in a mound of melancholia, well…everyone except Doom. Doom is still at the doors, sitting on the floor, arms wrapped tightly around his legs as he draws them closer and closer into his chest. He observes us with tired red eyes that had been full of tears moments earlier. He looks more like a sad little boy than a young man. There’s no spark left in his dark brown eyes. It’s as if he lost his soul in a bid to save ours. He’s Doom, the anti-hero.
Mom’s hoarse and forced words cut through the gloom. “John,” she says in a low and raspy voice. “Come over here and join us. You’re one of us, and we need to stay together.”
Doom slowly lifts his head, looks at each one of us, and decides to hesitantly creep over and join our group. He comes close, but he doesn’t touch. An uneasy peace settles over our little pile of people. I think we would have settled down to sleep that way if it wasn’t for what happened next.
Someone starts knocking on the theater door.
RENEE
Someone is knocking on the doors. They’re not knocking very loudly, but they might as well be doing it with the force of a battering ram because it snaps us out of our drowsy mood and brings us abruptly to our feet. Well, everyone except Jesse, that is. She stays on the floor curled up with her hands covering her face. I think she’s mentally checked out just like Houston did on that burning rooftop. I’m grateful that she has…I can barely get my head around what just happened myself.
There’s a pause, and then the knocking resumes; this time a little more insistent. Did someone actually survive? It’s impossible. No one could get away fast enough and if they did, they couldn’t, they wouldn’t get past the waiting horde of the newly Infected. Besides, Naked has renewed her barking and growling and that just goes to prove that it’s them. She barks then growls, barks then growls, barks then growls, and all the while her hair stands on end all the way down her back, transforming her from a Labrador to a Rhodesian Ridgeback.
“Mom, Naked’s going to have a conniption fit or something!” There’s an undercurrent of fear and concern in KC’s harsh whisper. I kneel down to half-hold Naked and try to smooth down her fur. It’s only when I touch her that I realize she’s shaking just as hard as I am. I use the calm voice I thought was gone for good to say, “There, there Naked, we know. We got the message.” It’s enough to make Naked stop barking, but not enough to make her stop growling and shaking.
Everyone’s looking at me, expecting me to do something, so I do what only a dumb blonde vixen would do in a B-grade horror movie: I call out, “Who’s there?” Why did I do that? Since when do the dead answer back? I must be losing my mind, because I half-expect the voice from Saturday Night Live to answer from the other side, “Land shark!”
But in reality nobody answers. Of course no one answers, because the dead can’t talk. The knocking begins again, but this time it’s more like a banging. Now it feels like we’ve switched from a horror flick to a monster movie with the beast on the other side trying to break down the doors and eat us up. In spite of myself, I cry out one more time “Who’s there?”
A sound behind us nearly makes my heart explode. It’s a voice from the grave, and it says in a trembling, pissed-off tone, “Well, it’s not us; that’s for sure.”
HOUSTON
We all whip around together to find out where the edgy voice came from. It’s Dorothy! I can’t believe it’s Dorothy! And it’s not just Dorothy. I can see Mr. Cromwell, and there’s Sarah wrapped up in Linus’s blanket. But that’s not possible. I saw them get bit myself!
Just to underscore that point, I can see angry red bite marks on Sarah’s arm and Dorothy’s neck. Wait, they got Mr. Cromwell’s arms too. Now I am dreaming, or at least I think I am until I see Sarah march up to Doom and kick him in the shins.
JESSE
It’s Sarah! Naked and I run up to her, and I grab her in a big bear hug while Naked makes little half jumps around her. I don’t ever want to let her go because it’s Sarah and she’s alive! She’s got Linus’s blanket around her shoulders like a cape so I ask, “When did Linus give you her blanket?”
“She handed it up to me after Mr. Cromwell put me on his shoulders. She asked me to hold it for her so it wouldn’t get trampled on by the crowd.” Sarah says this in a really small, sad voice. She had on this super-angry look when she kicked Doom in the leg, but now her face is back to her usual, I’m-not-really-here look.
I hear Mom ask, “Where’s Linus?” and then hear Mr. Cromwell reply in a hushed voice “She’s one of them now.” I hear someone start to cry at that. I can’t see who’s crying because I’m still holding on to Sarah, but it’s probably Mouse ‘cause Linus and Mouse were pretty close. I can just about here her say, “Linus would never have given up her blanket if she thought she was going to make it” through her tears. Sarah starts shaking like crazy and I wonder if it’s because she’s still mad that Doom shut her out. Maybe she’s mad because we gave her up for dead. Maybe she’s remembering what it was like to be out there. Whatever it is, I don’t feel like asking her.
Mom starts to take control again, asking Granny and Mr. Cromwell how they could get bit and not be zombies, or something like that. They’re definitely not zombies ‘cause they’re talking and they’re not trying to bite us. I hear dragging noises behind me and I wonder what it is but I’m not yet willing to let go of Sarah to find out. It turns out I don’t have
to turn around because Hou and Doom and Kaboom are dragging the lockers down the aisles of the theatre and are about to lift them up onto to the stage. “Move them towards the staircase by the clubhouse!” Mom orders.
I pull away from Sarah because I have a question of my own. “How did you get in here?” I ask. Everyone stops what they’re doing to listen because they’re wondering the same thing.
“When the Infected bit us and we didn’t turn into zombies, we started to push them back, real hard.” Sarah’s voice is shaky but gets stronger the more she talks. “Zombies fall down easy when they’re new.”
Mr. Cromwell picks up the story from there. “I remembered there was rooftop access in the custodian’s office. We kept just ahead of the pack but were held back by all the furniture blocking the corridors.”
“He was like Superman,” Sarah interrupts. She looks at Mr. Cromwell like he’s all the comic-book heroes in one. “He was picking up that heavy stuff and flinging it at the zombies, making a wall of furniture between us and them. He threw the chairs and desks and cots aside like they were just sticks of wood. And Granny—I mean Dorothy—held on to me with one hand while poking and pushing the zombies away with her walking stick with the other until Mr. Cromwell made a path for us.”
Notes from a Necrophobe Page 26