Dead Evolution

by Tim Moon

  “I’m not sure. He seems like a coward. Can we risk having someone like that around?” Ben asked.

  “He’s a doctor. He doesn’t need to fight.”

  “Everyone needs to be able to fight otherwise they’re a liability,” Ben said. “That’s the way it is now. Fight or die.”

  Charlotte put her hands on her hips. After a moment to process what he said, she nodded.

  “I understand where you’re coming from,” she said. “But I think we should err on the side of faith in humanity. I quizzed Mark about hospital procedure and asked a few medical questions. I think he’s legit. He can help us. His skills are more valuable now than ever before. You and Anuhea can teach him how to fight. You did that with Chadwick, right? So, why can’t he?”

  Shit, she’s got me there, he thought.

  “Fair points,” Ben acknowledged. “But he doesn’t get a second chance. If he fucks us over even once, even something small, I’ll put him down myself.”

  “So, I can ask him?”

  “Ask him,” Ben said with a sigh, continuing his shopping spree.

  21

  The shopping spree must have lasted an hour at which point they pushed three shopping carts nearly overflowing with gear and ammunition to the front door. Ben stayed inside to keep an eye on Mark while Charlotte slipped outside to check the parking lot for infected.

  Ben swept glass out of the way with his foot again while they waited for word from Charlotte that it was clear.

  “It’s been a while. Do you think she’s okay?” Mark asked.

  “She’s fine,” Ben said in a curt tone. He didn’t want to talk. Suspicion played a role, but it wasn’t the only reason.

  The cash registers were close by, so he walked over and pulled all the jerky off the shelf, stuffed them in a plastic bag and walked back to pile it in his cart. He went back for the display boxes filled with ChapStick, lighters, chem lights, and a big box of Snickers. After bagging the boxes and carefully placing it in the cart, he tore open a Snickers for himself.

  A simple question was printed on the wrapper. Hungry? Why, yes. Yes, I am.

  Charlotte climbed back through the hole, clouds of condensation billowing from her mouth, and waved them on.

  “It’s clear,” she said. “Hand me some stuff and then start bringing it outside.”

  Mark carried a stack of backpacks to her. She took them and climbed back out to the truck. Ben set his candy bar down and grabbed a stack of shopping bags. He filled them with the boxes of ammunition they had scavenged. Mark took a few and began bagging the other small stuff — socks, hats, shirts, gloves, and knives.

  “Why’d you wait to bag stuff?” Charlotte asked.

  Ben looked at her and shrugged.

  Mark chuckled and shook his head.

  When everything was bagged, they formed a line with Mark in the middle since he could straddle the hole in the security fence while standing up. Mark passed bags to Charlotte who gave them to Ben to pack in the truck.

  “Good thing you’re a tiny man,” Ben said. “Not much room left for you.”

  “Oh God,” Mark said, his voice quaking with fear.

  Ben frowned, thinking it was an odd reaction to the jab. Then he followed Mark’s gaze to a group of infected sprinting across the street towards them.

  “Keep packing, doc,” Ben said, pushing a bag into the doctor’s hands so he could draw his pistol.

  “They’re coming,” Mark said, breathless.

  “Move your ass, doc,” Ben snapped.

  Muttering curses, Charlotte fumbled with her rifle.

  “Take a breath and focus,” Ben said to her. He aimed and fired two rounds.

  The shots didn’t kill the woman wearing a dirty red dress; she stumbled and hit the ground hard. The six other runners spread out, like startled ducks. Ben sucked in a breath. Sonofabitch. They’ve never done that before.

  The woman in red scrambled back to her feet even as Ben dropped a man with half of his face chewed off. Charlotte had her rifle sorted out and killed another one.

  Sounds of feet slapping against the pavement grew louder. Ben’s heart thumped double time, keeping pace with the frantic pace of the infected. The zombies drew near; their screeching voices making his veins run cold. He realized the infected were going to reach them before they could shoot them all. He squeezed the trigger until the slide locked back with only one more kill to show for it.

  “Doc, grab a weapon,” Ben shouted. He dropped the pistol and pulled out his bat.

  Charlotte continued shooting. She managed to pick off a man with half his entrails flopping out of his torn gut.

  Ben strode forward, barely controlling his bladder as he tightened his grip on the handle. The first runner launched itself at him and he swung for the fences. He pivoted like a baseball player and crushed both arms that had been reaching out for him. Momentum sent the body slamming into his shoulder. Ben staggered backwards back a few steps. His shin hit the trailer hitch on the truck and felt like it shattered into a thousand pieces. The pain that took his breath away before he had crumpled to the ground.

  A woman with her lips and nose chewed off and a torn scalp that left her hair flapping into crook of her neck charged at Charlotte. With a shout of surprise, Charlotte jammed her rifle forward into the woman’s mouth and pulled the trigger. The woman’s brains splattered the bearded runner behind her.

  The woman’s body slumped forward, pushing Charlotte to the ground. The infected man leapt over the body, painted in fresh dark blood with chunks of brain matter clinging to his beard, and latched onto her. Charlotte barely kept his teeth from snapping off her nose.

  Ben gritted his teeth as he got to his feet and moved to help Charlotte. His leg buckled, and he collapsed beside the crippled zombie, writhing on the ground. Ben scrambled away in a panic, terrified of getting bit and worried that his leg might actually be broken.

  The infected man he had hit with the bat flopped forward and bit down on Ben’s shoe. The fear of getting infected made him shout in horror even though it was nearly impossible for it to bite through the shoe. Fear and adrenalin saturated his brain, obscuring rational thought. Mark appeared standing over them with a shovel from the back of the truck. He bashed the infected man’s head. On the second hit, Ben freed his foot and jerked his leg out of reach. He crawled to Charlotte to help.

  She was wrestling with the infected. Her breaths came in gasps and it was clear she was close to done. Ben knelt beside her, wrapped his arms around the infected man, gripping his own forearms to keep the guy pinned and wrenched him off Charlotte. They fell to the side with the bearded zombie struggling to free his arms. The man’s head turned from side to side, trying to bite him.

  “Kill him,” Ben said struggling to keep his grip. His palms were sweaty making them lose grip on his jacket sleeve. He lay on his back, with the zombie on top, hoping that this wasn’t how he would die.

  Charlotte held a tanto knife in her hands. Rolling to his side, Ben craned his head back out of the way. She brought the tip of the blade down, right into the bearded zombie’s ear. It sank in with a crunch of bone. Leaning forward with a hard grunt, Charlotte shoved down hard, forcing it deeper to pierce the zombie’s brain. The squelching sound and grinding of blade on bone made Ben’s stomach tighten in disgust, but he was grateful when the body went limp and he could finally release his grasp.

  Charlotte freed the blade from Beard’s head and dropped it. She reached out for Ben’s hand. He took it and carefully stood.

  “Holy shit, I hate those things,” he said.

  “W-w-when did they start running?” Mark asked.

  “No idea,” Ben said, panting. “They’re fairly new to us too.”

  “Not all of them run though, right?”

  “Right,” Charlotte said, gesturing to the bed of the truck. “But that’s why we came out to get all this stuff.”

  “Makes sense.” Mark propped his elbow against the truck and held his head. “I can’t belie
ve I survived this long. There’s no way I could have fought even one of those by myself. Especially after I left the hospital. Shit, I didn’t have so much as a scalpel.”

  “You’re not alone anymore,” Charlotte said in a comforting tone.

  Mark gave her a polite smile that quickly faded into a frown as his eyes darted at something behind her.

  “We need to go,” Mark said in a low voice.

  Charlotte reached down for her knife and wiped it quickly on the zombie’s clothes. Ben hobbled back to the truck with a weary look at the trailer hitch. Slow zombies had been drawn to the sound of gunshots. Ben estimated they had about five minutes before they closed in.

  “Thanks, Doctor Obvious,” Ben said. His teeth ground together in a vain attempt to alleviate the horrendous throbbing in his leg.

  “You could be more grateful,” Mark said, glowering at him. “I did help you.”

  “You’re right,” Ben said with a tired nod. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  Ben sighed, enjoying the reprieve. “Is everyone okay? No bites, right?”

  He looked Charlotte over with concern. She had been wrestling with the guy for a while before he got there to help.

  She looked herself over and patted down her arms and torso.

  “Safe,” she said, heaving a sigh of her own.

  “Doc?” Ben cocked an eyebrow at him.

  “I’m safe and healthy.” The doctor set the shovel back in the truck where he’d found it.

  “Let’s get this shit packed and get out of here,” Ben said wearily.

  “Where are we going? Back to your group?” Mark asked.

  Lifting the corner of the plywood, Ben set a bag full of ammunition into the corner of the bed and eased the plywood back down.

  “What’s it to you Doc?” Ben asked, giving him a sharp, suspicious look.

  Mark had helped Ben with the zombie, but they didn’t know him from any other random person on the street. He could easily be affiliated with the same group as the men at the pharmacy. Ben’s mind flashed back to the roadblock in Hawaii. Was Mark even a doctor? Charlotte seemed to think so, but it wouldn’t be the first time they had seen somebody impersonate a person of authority. Ben wasn’t about to just take him at his word. Not yet anyway.

  Mark looked a little taken aback and held his hands up in mock surrender. “Hey, I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m just curious. That’s all.”

  Charlotte rearranged the back seat to give Mark room to sit.

  “We’re going somewhere safe,” Charlotte said, patting his shoulder. “Don’t worry.”

  “Doc, you’re in the passenger seat. Charlotte, you get to drive,” Ben said.

  She looked surprised but nodded. Mark caught the look Charlotte gave him and began to chew his lip nervously. Ben knew that having a stranger sit behind you was a good way to get killed.

  Ben gestured towards the truck. “Let’s go.”

  The slow zombies managed to reach the far edge of the parking lot when they drove away from SportsMart. A light rain started a few minutes later. Ben wished they had a tarp for the back of the truck.

  “Thank you again, for letting me come with you,” Mark said.

  Charlotte looked at Ben in the rearview mirror.

  “Yeah,” Ben said, reluctantly.

  Turning in his seat, Mark met Ben’s eyes. “I really appreciate it.”

  Ben nodded.

  22

  Charlotte followed Ben’s directions, while navigating around debris and abandoned cars with ease. Ben led them to a back road after leaving SportsMart to avoid taking the same route home. Suspicion lingered in the back of his mind from his last trip outside the neighborhood.

  From there, they circled back around and emerged at the intersection of Mill Plain Blvd and Chkalov. The road was crowded so Charlotte slowed to a crawl. She looked at Ben in the rear-view mirror.

  “Which way?” she asked.

  “Wait a second,” he said, looking around. “I thought I heard something.”

  Mark sucked in a breath and searched the intersection frantically.

  “It’s okay,” Charlotte said, patting Mark’s arm.

  “I don’t hear anything else. Turn right here. We’ll be driving down this road for a while,” Ben said.

  The truck started to roll forward when they all heard a screeching growl. An infected woman leapt onto an abandoned car just twenty feet away and then hurled herself at the truck. Everything moved in slow motion. Mark yelped in surprise, Ben pulled out his pistol while Charlotte jerked the steering wheel and they swerved away from the flying zombie.

  The infected woman struck the front passenger side with a bone crunching thud and managed to hold on. Ben jabbed his finger down on the window button. It buzzed down, letting in a blast of chilled air. He stuck his arm outside to fire three quick shots. Two of them hit her torso and one pinged off the edge of the hood.

  She snarled at Ben as she clung to the mirror and lashed out with a foot. The kick nearly knocked the gun out of his hand. He maintained control of the weapon as the woman pulled herself up. Ben wished the damned mirror would snap off already, but it held, so he fired again. This time the shot punched through the side of her skull. Grey matter and blood splashed the window. She slipped underneath the truck which thumped over her body with a dull crunch.

  Ben leaned back, panting from the adrenaline. Cold air continued to whip through the truck, but he didn’t care. He was just glad it had only been one runner.

  “That was terrifying,” Mark said, staring at the gore smeared on his window.

  “I’m rolling it up,” Charlotte said to Ben.

  He nodded just as the window buzzed up.

  Charlotte sprayed the windshield with cleaner and they watched as the wipers whipped back and forth, smearing blood around like finger paint before it began to rinse away.

  “Mark, how is it you were in a store like that but still didn’t have a gun to defend yourself, when we showed up?” Ben asked.

  Mark’s shoulders fell.

  “I can do a lot of things. You need a bone set, no problem. You need me to suture a ruptured artery, no problem. Loading and using a gun? Problem.”

  Mark’s tone of voice was so depressed and embarrassed that Ben couldn’t hide his smile. Charlotte started giggling, which made Ben crack up. Even Mark chuckled a little.

  “Don’t worry, Doc. We’ll help you with that,” Ben said, wiping a tear from the corner of his eye.

  “Are you from around here?” Charlotte asked.

  “I grew up in Battleground, which is nearby. Just to the north about thirty minutes or so,” Mark said. “I went to school at Washington State University for pre-med and medical school at the University of Washington. Staying in-state helped lower the cost.”

  “That’s smart. When I went to nursing school, I got hit with that out-of-state tuition bullshit.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  “University of Maryland but I’m from Virginia.”

  “What are you doing way out here?” Mark asked.

  Ben leaned forward and said, “Hey, slow down.”

  They were near the pharmacy. His neck tingled, as if they were being watched. Something felt off. He rubbed his neck nervously, but the sensation remained. Ben directed Charlotte to get closer and they cruised by along the line of the curb. As they passed some bushes, the sidewalk near the MovieBox came into view and it clicked. A tingling sensation ran down his spine.

  “The bodies are gone,” he said.

  “What bodies?” Mark asked, suddenly very curious about the situation.

  “I was here before. We had a run in with some people who attacked us, thinking we were easy prey. We had to kill them,” Ben explained. “We put their bodies on the sidewalk by the MovieBox. Now they’re gone.”

  “Did they turn? Maybe wander away?” Charlotte asked.

  “None were bitten. I shot them.”

  “You shot them?” Mark asked. “Why
did you put them outside?”

  “Yeah, they tried to kidnap and rape my friend. Like I said, they admitted to thinking we were easy prey. I showed them the error of their ways.” Ben sniffed derisively. “As for the bodies, we didn’t want them to stink up the place. There’s still a lot of stuff inside that we can come back for.”

  Mark gave him a weary look.

  Ben ignored it and leaned forward to look up at the roof of the pharmacy. Then he turned to face out of his own window and checked the far side of the street. He couldn’t see anything, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was watching.

  “Speed up, let’s get out of here,” Ben said. “Go down two blocks and take a left.”

  “What’s wrong?” Charlotte asked, giving him a concerned look in the mirror.

  “I feel like we’re being watched.”

  “What?” Mark asked, turning to face Ben. “Who would do that?”

  “If those guys we killed had friends, they might want revenge.” Ben stared out the back window, but didn’t see anything to confirm his suspicions. If what the man they questioned said was true, more than a dozen people could be itching for a fight.

  The truck squealed around the corner.

  “Slow down,” Ben said.

  “Sorry. Now where?” Charlotte asked.

  “Go up two blocks then take a right. We’re going to take the scenic route,” Ben said as he watched behind them. “If someone is watching us, we’re not going to lead them back to the neighborhood.”

  23

  A flood of relief washed over Ben when the vehicle barriers came into view. They had looped around and approached the house from the north. Charlotte slowed as she maneuvered through the S-curve they’d built into the makeshift wall.

  Ben realized that the need for the sniper’s nest on the roof was more urgent than he’d thought. Whoever was on guard duty couldn’t have spotted them until they were already through the wall. Too close for comfort.