by Scott Toney
“Nina, come on,” he shouts louder to get my attention.
We’re in the hallway now, with Ben still pulling me. I know that I need to pull my shit together, but I feel drunk with panic.
Ben grabs me and pulls me down the stairs. He slips one of the backpacks onto my shoulders. It’s heavy and burdensome, and more panic sets in that I won’t be able to run with it on.
“I’m going to run down the street, and try to direct them all away from the house.” He pulls the curtains on the front window away a crack so that I can see out. “There’s too many of them by the pickup still, but they’re slow. I can outrun them.”
Ben grabs my hand, peeling my nails away from my palm, and places his keys in it. “You get to the pickup and then you come and get me.”
I look up into his eyes, tears spilling down my face.
“Do you understand?”
Do I understand? No, not really. We’re going to die, aren’t we?
His words are hollow. They echo around in my head like marbles in an empty tin can as he tries to shake some sense back into me.
Jesus, we’re going to die.
I look at Ben; he’s sweating and panicking, too. He needs me. Ben needs me right now.
I nod. “Okay.”
He hands me his backpack and I notice that it’s even heavier than mine, but I only have to get to his pickup.
Only. I roll my eyes.
“You have to take that with you; I can’t carry it and run.”
I nod and grimace again at its weight, but don’t comment on it.
Ben pulls the gun from the waistband of his jeans, turns to the door, his hand resting on the knob of it. He takes a deep breath and glances at me.
“Are you ready?”
I shake my head no and then give a half-hearted empty chuckle. He smiles back, turns to me, and kisses me with so much force that I nearly fall over. A thud hits the glass of the patio door and interrupts our goodbye. The growling getting louder.
His hand strokes my cheek. “I love you, Nina.” He presses his forehead to mine. “Be safe.”
“You, too,” I whisper.
“I’ll see you soon.”
I nod again. We’re both delaying it, putting off the inevitable until we really have to. The sound of banging is getting worse and I know that any minute the glass will give way and the house—our home—will be overrun with those evil things.
He looks at me one last time, turns the handle, and runs out of the door.
The smell is what hits me first. It smells like rotten meat that’s been left out in the sun for too long. The smell makes me gag and I feel blinded by the need to vomit.
What the fuck is wrong with me? Move!
I look out of the door and see Ben running down the street; the zombies have begun to follow, slowly shambling after him. I wait a few seconds until a path clears to the pickup. The glass doors to the patio decide that now is the best time to give out and with a great creak they implode, and zombies tumble into the living room. There isn’t that moment that you get in films, where everything pauses whilst people reassemble themselves and get their bearings, there is only the hungry growl of the dead as they lurch towards me, tripping over themselves and each other in their eagerness for breakfast à la cart.
I scream and run out of the door, coming straight smack bang into a stray deader. Her hands claw for me, scratching at my clothes as her head leans forward her mouth opening to take a bite out of my face. I push her back with all my force and swallow down a scream which is threatening to erupt form me at any moment. I slap her hands away from me and using Bens backpack as a shield I jump around her and she staggers to one side and falls over.
The pickup seems an infinite distance away from me. The more I run towards it, the farther away it is. Yet somehow I finally reach it, climb in, and slam the door shut behind me. Zombies stumble out of my front door, and my terror increases as one after another they see me. My hand fumbles with the key for a second or two, attempting to push the stupid thing into the little ignition hole. I scream in frustration and nearly drop it, and then I scream again when a zombie hits the side window.
The key slips in finally and I turn it, sticking the vehicle into gear and nearly forgetting to take the handbrake off as I slam it into reverse.
The pickup skids wildly away from the kerb as I attempt to turn it around and go after Ben, attracting more attention with all the noise that I’m making. My bag is still on my back and I can’t sit properly with it on. I grab it, and tug it free from my shoulders and throw it into the foot space behind me with a frustrated yell.
I look up the road and see Ben still running. Every now and then glancing behind him looking for me. Zombies are exploding out from every corner of the street and I slam my foot down and haul-arse after him.
“I’m coming, baby.”
7.
I slam into their rotting bodies, their skin leaving slimy brown blood trails across the hood of the car. Each time I hit a new one they give a throaty growl at me before sliding to the ground. Yet when I look in my rear-view mirror, they’re standing back up as if I’ve just tickled them with a feather and not mown them over at fifty miles per hour.
As I get closer to Ben, I aim for them, skidding from side to side in an attempt to hit as many as possible. My speed drops to thirty miles an hour, then twenty, and then I’m dawdling along at ten miles an hour like I don’t have a care in the world.
They are slow, and yes, they are stupid, but there’s so freaking many of them that I can hardly spot Ben. If it weren’t for his frantic looks behind, I wouldn’t be able to see him above the crowd.
I’ve no idea how I’m going to get to him; he’s tiring, slowing down, and a horrendous thought crosses my mind that I won’t reach him in time. That it will be too late, and that they will get to him before me. I scream in terror as more of the damn things come out of the houses lining the road. Our street is ending, and beyond here is the main town. There’s shops and businesses and more homes. We’re screwed if I don’t get to him before he reaches it.
I floor it and pull around some of the zombies haphazardly, looking around frantically trying to piece together a plan of some sort. I do the only thing I can think of and swing the steering wheel tightly to the right, pulling directly in front of Ben and knocking some more of the deaders over to boot.
Ben grabs the side of the pickup and dives in as dead greying hands grab for him. He kicks them away and I stick the pickup in gear and accelerate away, watching in my mirrors as they shamble after us like a mass of raving concert goers. I want to hoot and cheer myself. I’ve no idea how I just pulled off that move, I’ve never done anything like that before. I can only think that it is down to watching so many movies. Ha, and people say too much TV is bad for you.
We drive in silence with only the pickup’s engine noise, and my racing heart to keep me company. My knuckles are white on the steering wheel as I drive us out of town. The place has been destroyed in only a couple of days. Bodies and blood litter the pavements and roads. Cars sit wedged together in collisions. And deaders roam the ravaged streets that I once called home. I blink once, twice, three times, but the image and my thoughts are still very clear. It’s all gone; all destroyed, and there’s not a damn thing I can do about it.
Whilst Ben and I were tucked up tight in our home, people were being eaten alive. My eyes stray to a zombie huddled over a body on the floor, scooping the insides up to its mouth. It watches me as we drive past it, standing up and letting the long intestines of whomever it was eating trail from its blood-ringed mouth. Its cold dead eyes follow me long after we have passed, and in my mirrors I watch it crouch back down and continue its meal.
My own stomach gurgles in retaliation wanting to purge itself. I can’t look away from the windows and mirrors to look at Ben’s face and calm myself though. They’re everywhere. Blood flows through the streets like rivers of rain, and the dead are rife like vermin. The smell of death and de
caying bodies is seeping in through the vents, making my nostrils flare in disgust. I reach for a dial on the dashboard; turning off the outside airflow and blocking the smell from me as much as I can.
Ben taps on the window to get my attention, his sleeve covering his mouth and nose. But I can’t stop. Inside I’m a volcano of emotions waiting to erupt, waiting to savagely tear myself apart and release every feeling that I have pent up inside me. Like a wild cat, my mind screams and shakes to free itself from the terrors it’s witnessing.
We leave our small town behind, the beauty of the countryside attempting to banish the visions that still haunt me, but they are still there. The images will always be there now, burned into my mind like history written into books.
I don’t know how long I’ve been driving. Our hometown has vanished from my view, and the congestions of vehicles which surrounded it have dissipated to just the odd few. I haven’t seen a zombie for a while, but behind my eyes they are everywhere. The world is crawling with their lifeless bodies.
“Pull over,” I hear Ben shout to me.
I shake my head no.
“Pull over. I’ll drive, it’s okay now,” his voice breaks through to me, gentle yet forceful at the same time, and I nod once and slowly pull the car to the side of the road.
Ben climbs down from the bed of the pickup and comes round to my door. My hands still grip the steering wheel tightly, and for the moment neither of us can say anything. I finally look at Ben and in his face is something that I have never seen in anyone’s face before. Not really; not until now.
It’s fear.
You know, you think you’ve seen fear before. You think you know it, but you don’t. You can’t truly know what it is to fear something or someone, to feel fear’s hands clasping you by the spine, ready to drag your body apart. Not until you have witnessed hell like this.
Ben climbs in and I switch seats awkwardly without leaving the safety of the pickup. At some point I drift off to sleep. The constant hum of the engine and the lack of adrenalin pumping through my veins send me off into a heavy slumber. When I wake it’s dark out and rain is hammering the windows. The wipers are squeaking as they swish the rain away from the glass.
I watch Ben’s profile for a few minutes before he becomes aware of my stare. He turns to look at me. He looks older now. The lines in his face set harder, more determined than ever.
“You okay?” his voice breaks the silence between us.
Am I okay? I’ve no idea. Are any of us okay anymore? I shrug at him, my expression unchanging.
“I’ll get us somewhere safe, Nina. I’ll look after you. I promise.”
When did he get so protective? I can’t find my voice to answer him, so I close my eyes in response, trying to squeeze the tears back. The last thing he needs is me breaking down into a quivering girly wreck. I need to pull my shit together. I turn in my seat, arching my back as I stretch.
The night is so dark, and I’ve no idea where we are. Only the headlights of the truck light the way. The road looks like a thick black tongue. It reminds me of their tongues, lolling from their wretched mouths. Their fingers tapping at the windows, begging for entry. A shudder runs through me. It occurs to me that there are no lights anywhere. I look out of my side window and see the streetlights are there, but they remain unlit. As if all the bulbs in the world have popped.
“They went off an hour or so ago. They were on, and then…they were off,” he answers my unasked question, his voice bringing a new chill to my bones.
“It’s still happening then?”
“Yeah.”
“I thought… I don’t know, I guess I still thought that after a couple of days, the army, or the government, or someone would be able to stop them. That maybe it was just our town.” My eyes have become more accustomed to the darkness now and I can see cars littering the side of the highway. Thankfully, and also ironically, it’s actually too dark for me to make out if there are any deaders near the cars. “But no one’s coming, are they? I mean, if the power has gone out, that means it’s still spreading, right?”
“I guess so.”
I take a glance at the speedo dial and see we’re doing just thirty miles an hour.
Ben sees my gaze and replies. “They can’t run, seems no point in using up all the fuel by driving like a maniac,” he replies to my second unspoken question with a shrug.
I guess he’s right, but I’d still feel safer driving faster. In the movies, some of them can run really fast. I snort out a laugh. I seriously need to remember that this is real life now, not the movies, no matter how much like a horror film this feels. I mean if this were the movies, there would be rescue helicopters round about now wouldn’t they?
“What’s so funny?” Ben asks.
“Nothing. Just me and my random thoughts. You know me.”
He gives me a half smile and continues to drive.
8.
Daylight stretches out over the horizon in a beautiful mirage of colours. Oranges, yellows, and pinks. If I had my camera with me, I would probably take a picture of it as a keepsake. It’s overly beautiful, especially in contrast to the ugly surroundings.
Death and destruction still litter the world around us. Town after town we have passed, always with the same conclusion, death.
The dead don’t sleep, it seems. They only kill. We, however, do need to sleep. We are exhausted and hungry, our bladders are fit to bursting and we’re seriously low on fuel. I don’t know how far we have travelled, but even Ben’s diesel pickup can only stretch the petrol so far. We are going to need to re-fuel or change vehicles very soon.
“I think there would be good.” Ben points to a house in the distance. It is a lonesome looking country house. Small enough to be considered a cottage I guess, but large enough to house more than one or two zombies.
I shake my head. “No.”
“We aren’t going to make it much further, Nina.”
“It’s too dangerous.”
“It has a truck on the drive.”
“It has a swing in the garden,” I state coldly.
“So?” He raises an eyebrow at me.
“So, that could mean zombie kids.”
Ben looks at me in confusion.
“Are you ready to kill zombie kids? Because we damn might have to.”
Ben shakes his head and we keep on driving, slowing as we pass it to check for signs of movement in or around the house. We see nothing, and at the last possible moment, Ben swings the wheel of the pickup, nearly doing a full 360. He straightens it back up and drives back towards the house with me huffing and tutting at him the whole time.
We pull up in front of the house, staring out of the windows, and watch for movement again. Apart from the swing that gently blows in the breeze, I can’t see any movement. I squint my eyes up at the top windows and check the surrounding fields. I see Ben doing the same, but it’s quiet, almost peaceful here. The sort of place that we would more than likely have retired to.
“We might not see another house for miles, and we don’t have the fuel to get us that far. This is our best bet.” Ben reaches into the back of the truck and grabs his backpack, pulls out a knife and hands it to me.
“You wait here. I’ll go check it out, if it’s safe I’ll come back for you.” He grabs his gun from the dashboard.
“No way. You’re not going in there alone. If you insist on going, then I’m coming with you.”
He shakes his head and I put a hand up. “Talk to the hand, Ben. I’m not debating this. Sure I can’t fire a gun, and sure I can’t fight for shit, but we’re in this together, and you’re not doing this alone. I love you and hell, let’s be honest, I couldn’t survive in this world without you anyway, so really if you want to protect me, then you have to let me come with you.”
He smiles at me before I continue. “And yes, I do realise that I just gave you no good reason for letting me go in there with you, since I can’t fight or shoot, and the sight of those dead things makes me q
ueasy, but that’s just your tough luck, because I’m still coming.”
We both laugh, which seems totally obscure given the current situation, but there you have it. He leans over and kisses my lips tenderly.
“I love you too, but if there is any sign of trouble don’t try and be a hero. You run back to the truck and lock the doors. I need to know that you’ll do that.”
I smile and nod, finally taking the knife from him. There’s not a chance that he’s going to let me go in there with him unarmed.
“Just aim and shoot,” he says to himself. He looks at me and I nod for reassurance.
“I guess aim for the head, that’s what everyone always says to do, right?” I add on.
“Who says?” Ben cocks his head to look at me.
“The films, the movie makers, you know?” I splutter, feeling kind of stupid saying it out loud.
Ben smirks and nods his head. I’m not sure he agrees with me or if he just thinks I’m an idiot, but feeling embarrassed I decide it’s best to move on from the topic.
“Time to go,” he says before he opens his door.
We get out and look around. It’s strangely comforting having the sun warm on my skin, but what really keeps me calm is the smell. It smells clean. Fresh even. Lasts nights rain made the air even fresher. I can’t smell any of the dead here and that thought alone gives me peace, at least for the moment.
We walk together hand in hand, eyeing the surroundings as we do. When we reach the truck, Ben tries the handle and it opens with ease.
“No keys, but it looks in good condition. If the keys are in the house, then we need to take them. Let’s hope it has more fuel than the pickup.” He closes the door quietly and comes back to my side.
A rustle behind us makes me turn and aim. Ben does the same, raising his knife upwards, but it’s only a squirrel. It scurries up a tree and into safety. I look down both ways of the road before turning back to face the house.
The lower windows are boarded up, hell, even the letterbox as a piece of wood nailed across it. Ben tries the handle anyway, but of course it’s locked.