by Henson, Lynn
“That your friend’s car?” she asked.
“Yeah. Let me try to talk to them again,” he said, and moved his backpack in front of him and dug out the walkie-talkie. All of the zombies that had been milling around were now making their way slowly towards the motorcycle. He kept an eye on their progress as he spoke into the radio.
“Kim! Bree! Can you hear me? We’re outside the pharmacy!” he yelled into the device.
Thirty seconds later, they had to move because the zombies were coming dangerously close. Blake was about to try again when the walkie-talkie said, “Blake? We’re trapped inside. They’re at the front and back doors!”
“Yeah, I can see that. We’ll try to clear the back door for you, so get ready to move when I tell you.”
He looked at the woman who nodded, and she gunned the motorcycle forward and around to put the bike on a direct line facing the zombies congregating at the back door. “What’s the plan?!” he asked her.
She blared her horn and several of the zombies at the back door turned and started to move towards them. She pulled her pistol out and squeezed off several shots at the zombies. One of the zombies head was thrown back violently, a gush of dark liquid exiting the bullet hole as it crumpled to the ground. Another took a shot in the chest and fell backward to the floor. A female zombie wearing a yellow sundress took a shot to the arm which caused that side of her body to recoil, but the zombie pressed forward with morbid determination despite the wound. The woman skirted them close to the ones mobbing the back door and then angled away. Blake checked back and found that they now had the undivided attention of the entire group who were now pursuing the motorcycle. The small lot behind the pharmacy was becoming more difficult to maneuver in as zombies from the front of the building started to enter the area. “If they’re gonna come out, they better fucking do it now!” she yelled at him. He yelled “Alright, go go go!” into the walkie-talkie. The back door of the pharmacy burst open and Bree and Kim ran out of the pharmacy heading straight for their car. The zombies that were closer to them immediately took notice and started stumbling after them. A zombie who could have once been a personal trainer emerged from behind a dumpster and Blake was sure that Kim and Bree didn’t see that one from where they were. “That one’s going to catch them!” he yelled. The woman brought the bike to a halt and leveled the pistol at the fit zombie. She pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. “Shit!” she complained.
“Strafe him!” he yelled.
She brought the motorcycle forward in a sudden quick acceleration, aiming the bike slightly to the left of the zombie. They zipped past Bree and Kim who flinched in surprise and Blake brought his baton out and swung it at the buff zombie. The baton connected with its head and Blake’s arm went numb. It had the desired effect though of putting a serious dent in its noggin and it spun around comically before collapsing to the ground. The sisters reached the car and jumped into it. It started on the first try, the engine buzzing to life and the car started moving. Bree somehow managed to narrowly miss every zombie in the lot as she maneuvered back out to the street. Blake and the woman roared after them, struggling to stay close. After about a minute of driving, the hazard lights on Bree’s car started flashing and she slowed to a stop ahead of them. The woman pulled over next to the driver’s side where Bree had opened her window. “What’s happening? Where are we going?” she wanted to know.
“The whole town’s been overrun!” he answered.
“Like that’s not obvious,” Bree observed.
“We have to get back to the house to help Jed. You’ve got antibiotics, right?” the woman asked impatiently.
“Yes. Who are you?” Bree asked suspiciously.
“We don’t have time to get into that,” Blake interrupted, “Lisa and Tiffany are trapped at the house. The whole street is filled with zombies and they’re trying to get at them.”
“If there’re zombies all over the street, then how are we getting to the house?” Bree asked incredulously.
“We’ll figure it out when we get there,” Blake said hurriedly. He glanced over at a trio of zombies who had noticed the stopped vehicles and were now halfway across the street and getting closer. “We gotta leave. Come on!”
She closed her window and he could see herself saying something as she revved her engine and shot forward. Blake barely got hold of his seat handle as the motorcycle noisily chased after the car.
The ride back was more difficult for the drivers as the zombies on the road were all walking north through the city, only deviating from their path to try to reach the car and motorcycle. It was like driving the wrong way on a freeway where all the oncoming traffic were animated corpses. Bree managed to artfully guide them through the crowded street without mishap and they soon arrived at the cul de sac where their houses were. The driver’s side window was down and Bree was waving the motorcycle to come closer. They rolled up and Bree looked expectantly at them.
“What?” Blake asked, slightly uncomfortable.
“You said we’d figure it out when we get here,” she replied, eyes narrowing. “We’re here.”
“Haha... right, ok,” Blake stalled, thinking.
“What are we trying to do?” Kim called from the passenger side. “We just need to get the antibiotics inside, right?”
“That’s only the first part,” the woman said. “Once we fix Jed up, then we get him out of there.”
Bree shook her head. “Can’t fit that many people. There’s three at the house and there’s no way we’re fitting that guy in my car.”
“We shouldn’t move him anyway,” Kim added quickly. “As long as the zombies can’t get inside we can help your friend and plan our next move.”
Blake noticed that some of the zombies had noticed them and were moving towards them with slow menace.
“Ok. We’ll do that for now,” the woman replied unhappily. “How do we get to the house?”
“Lisa? Tiffany? We’re close by. How’s it looking in there?” Blake spoke into the walkie.
“Oh, hi, Blake,” Tiffany replied. “They broke some of the windows and we’ve been doing our best to keep them from getting inside. So I think it’s looking pretty bad. We’re pretty scared in here.”
“How would we get inside?” Blake asked.
“The backyard is still empty. You should go that way.”
“Let’s find a way to go around back,” he told Bree. She nodded and did a U-turn around the zombies who were not so rapidly approaching them. The woman revved the engine and with a lot of noise, followed Bree. They followed her about halfway down the street and Bree turned into a driveway of a ramshackle house that had a rusty Ford pickup from the ‘70s sitting on blocks on the remains of a lawn. What little remained of the paint on the small house was peeling which perfectly complimented the cracked glass in the windows. Bree stopped and Kim exited the car, throwing on a full looking backpack. Blake hopped off the bike and pulled at his pants trying to get his crotch back to feeling normal. The woman turned the motorcycle off and walked over to where Kim stood waiting. Behind the house was a wasteland of dead grass. From where they stood though, they could see the backs of the houses that were on their street.
“Bree will stay here to watch the cars,” she told them. “I gave her my walkie-talkie.” She hefted the backpack higher onto her shoulders.
The three of them crunched their way through the dead field. The sun poured UVs onto them and Blake began to worry that he would get sunburned. It took several minutes, but they finally reached the brick wall that marked the edge of the house. He grabbed the edge of the wall and pulled up enough to look over it. A tall guy wearing gray coveralls that had “Gary” embroidered on the chest looked up at him and hissed. Startled, he let go landing rather ungracefully.
“You alright?” Kim asked, concerned.
“Yeah,” he said unsteadily. “There’s a zombie on the other side of the wall.”
“Is it the right house?” the woman asked.
“Yeah,” he rubbed his hands together as they felt raw from touching the coarse brick wall. “He’ll probably come over to where we’re standing, so let’s go over at that corner over there,” he said, walking over to where he intended to climb.
“Lisa!” he spoke into his walkie-talkie. “We’re behind the house. Get ready to let us in.”
“I’m ready. Just make it quick,” Lisa suggested.
He got over to where Gary wouldn’t be able to touch him and pulled himself up. He confirmed that Gary was a safe distance away, and then climbed over to land with a soft thud on the dirt. Gary started to limp towards him.
“Come on! Come on!” he whispered, not letting his eyes off of the zombie.
“Catch,” Kim said from above him. He looked up just in time to keep her backpack from smacking him in the face. She pulled herself over the wall and landed in a crouch next to him. She stood and gently took the backpack back from him. The woman came over as Kim was hitting the ground, landing in a crouch with one hand touching the ground that reminded him vaguely of Spiderman. He jogged over to the house as Lisa was moving some of the furniture aside from the broken glass door so they could get in.
He stood to one side and let Kim and the woman get into the house and then followed them quickly inside. When he cleared the threshold, Lisa and Kim moved the plywood barricade back into position just as Gary smacked into it. The wood almost tipped backward, but Lisa and Kim steadied it and pushed it flush against the metal door frame. A section of the wood exploded outwards showering them with splinters and a hand clawed at the girls, snagging Lisa’s blouse. She screamed and pulled away from the back door in a panic tearing her top half off.
Behind him, glasses broke on the floor and there was a loud crash of something heavy hitting the ground. He looked back in surprise to see that a table had toppled over.
“Move!” the woman yelled from behind the table as it started sliding forward towards the back door making a horrible grinding noise. He grabbed a hold of Lisa’s arm and slid her back out of the way. Kim watched the table coming forward and jumped out of the way at the last second so the damaged barricade wouldn’t fall. The table crunched into the plywood barricade and immediately shuddered from impacts from outside. The woman held her place behind the table keeping it from sliding out of position. Blake looked around and ran over to grab an ottoman and moved it behind the table to reinforce it. Kim slid the coffee table over and added it to the barricade. The pounding from outside continued unabated while the barricade was hastily constructed, but they had stacked enough weight behind it that it held in place.
“Alright. Alright,” Kim said to herself sounding relieved. “Let’s help your friend Miss...?”
“Call me Angel,” the woman introduced herself.
“Angel,” Kim repeated as she got up and walked over to a sobbing Lisa, who had curled up into a ball. She knelt down beside her and put her arm around her. Lisa buried her head in Kim’s shoulder and Kim motioned Blake over and pointed at the backpack. “She needs a minute,” she whispered. “Go help her.”
Blake picked up the backpack and followed her into the guest bedroom. The biker had soaked his bed sheets through with sweat and had thrashed around considerably.
“You untied him,” he observed.
“He’s not going to hurt anybody while I’m here,” she replied angrily. She sat on the bed with him, pulling his head into her lap somehow. “Hand over the bag and find some water,” she ordered. He stood there watching her smooth what was left of his hair over, confused by her nurturing behavior. “Please?” she added, sparing him a glance as she dabbed his sweat with a hand towel. He walked over to her and handed her the backpack. She accepted it and dug into it until she found the antibiotics. Blake could hear the biker’s shallow phlegmy breathing. He hurried back to the kitchen and retrieved a glass of water. He brought it back to the bedroom and offered it to her. She had somehow raised him to a sitting position and his eyes were glazed over, he hardly seemed aware of where he was or what he was doing.
“Jed? Baby? You’ve gotta take this,” she told him, pill in hand. One of his eyes opened and rolled around lazily. But he opened his mouth and she promptly put the antibiotics in. She then took the water from Blake and gave him a little. He saw his throat working and she tried to give him more. He coughed weakly and the water dribbled down his chin onto his sweat encrusted shirt. Angel removed the glass and patted him on the back like she was burping a baby. She rubbed his back and when his coughing abated she laid him back down. He relaxed and resumed his wet raspy breathing.
“I’ll leave you guys alone,” he said, backing towards the door.
“No,” she said, steel in her voice. “Stay. Sit.”
Blake sat in a chair that was placed near a dresser, unwilling to sit close to Jed and Angel. “Ok,” he said meekly.
She just sat on the edge of the bed watching Jed as she might watch a sick child. Now that she wasn’t shooting things, yelling, or riding around on a loud motorcycle, he could see that she looked tired. It wasn’t the type of tired that a good night’s sleep could take care of though. It was chronic with her, the kind that needed long-term treatment by completely changing her lifestyle. I bet she was fucking hot ten years ago. Blake recalled seeing women in their sixties who had tried to maintain themselves by regularly exercising, maintaining their figures, dressing well, and all the other things women do to look good but seeing someone like this usually prompted him to wonder how they had looked at twenty. As someone who wasn’t into GILFs, this was the highest compliment he could pay someone. He suddenly realized that she had seen him staring at her, and he averted his eyes feeling embarrassed somehow.
“What were you thinking?” she asked gently.
“Just that you look tired,” he replied honestly.
“Tired,” she hung her head wearily. “That doesn’t even begin to describe it.”
He braced himself mentally for the incoming barrage of whining about her life. When she didn’t continue to talk, he started to feel awkward. “Well?” he prompted.
“Well, what?”
“Aren’t you going to tell me why you’re so tired?”
“No. You want to hear that shit? What are you? You some kind of fucking pussy?”
“Then why am I sitting here?”
“Just wanted some company.”
He got up. “Look, I’m going to go check on my friends.”
She shrugged. He walked back into the living room. All around them was the sound of the undead clamoring to get in, muted by the walls. Lisa was sprawled out on the couch, her arm covering her eyes. Kim sat nearby, fidgeting with nervous energy. She looked up at his approach and seemed a bit relieved. “He took the meds?” she asked.
He nodded. “Yeah. But he’s still in real bad shape if I’m any judge.”
“We’ll just have to wait and see what happens,” she sighed, “I’m not happy with the current situation.”
“I can’t say that I’m very thrilled either,” he agreed.
“My sister is sitting in her car a block away. Lisa is taking a timeout. We’re surrounded by a horde of infected that’s rolled into town out of the blue. Carrey, Kyle, Doris, and Gao are nowhere to be found. And we’re being manipulated by a psycho into trying to save her violent boyfriend. I miss anything?”
“We’re out of coffee,” he added.
“Well, now we’re really screwed,” she said smiling slightly.
“Where’s Tiffany?” he asked.
“She’s upstairs keeping an eye on what’s going on outside.”
“Alright,” he nodded, “This is seriously fucked up.”
“Uh, yeah,” She looked towards the bedroom and leaned closer to him. “You think we can sneak out of here? she whispered.
“Ditch them?” he whispered back, aghast.
“Why not? What? Like we need more people? I don’t know about you, but I don’t think this group needs new leaders.” she argued. “Besides, even if that biker d
oesn’t die he’s not exactly going to be very mobile after the beating you guys put on him.”
“But what will they do?”
“Does it matter? You’ve got to get rid of this idea that you have that we need to save everyone we run into. The only people I really care about are my sister and Lisa. And you’ve been… less annoying. Sorry to say that, but that’s reality. The other people have all been helping out and stuff and that’s fine, but we can’t just keep taking people on. If this situation doesn’t get better soon we’re probably going to start meeting desperate people who have decided to rewrite the rulebook. What then?”
“You’re right. Everything you said is correct,” he admitted. “But I can’t help but feel like if we can help, we should.”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about. That idealism is going to get us in trouble.” She ran her hand up her forehead, flicking her bangs up. “Ok, philosophical discussion aside, we can’t leave Bree out there. I’m all for getting out of here and moving on. If you’re coming with us, fine. If not, you can stay here and take your chances with those people.”
His shoulders sagged. “I’m with you,” he replied. He couldn’t help but feel guilty though about having to choose between people, especially because he’d started to get to know them and they weren’t actually too bad.
“Ok,” she said. “When Lisa feels better, we’re getting out of here, first chance we get.”
“One thing. If we get the chance we’ll help the people in our group, won’t we?” he pleaded. “They’ve been good companions up until now.”