by Glen Krisch
Billy would sob like a baby if he opened his mouth to speak, so he started pedaling instead. Devastated, empty inside. How could he have thought the flu had passed by them? Not only that, but how could a few mumbled sentences from his brother change everything?
A tear slipped from his eye and he blinked it away, even as anger roiled his guts. Rage-fueled adrenaline dumped into his bloodstream and he began to pedal faster, the trees whipping by in a blur. Charlie called out to him, but Billy ignored him, tearing down the trail.
He didn’t slow until the trail veered toward the chain-link fence that enclosed the property. With his legs heavy with fatigue, Billy pulled off to the side. He let his dirt bike fall into the grass, and walked over to a tall oak tree. He slumped down until he sat at the base of the trunk, the cool shade a fine contrast to the burning sweat on his brow.
They were heading to Florida for the winter, he realized. His grandparents were dead, and they were still going to Florida for the winter. He could so easily picture the thick gold shag carpeting in their living room, the heavy scent of Grandpa’s cigars, holding Grandma’s frail hand while they walked the beachfront at dusk. Each detail stabbed his heart, and he shook his head, trying to put them out of mind.
Charlie coasted behind him, stopped next to him and nodded, his eyes dark. Billy knew he’d let him sprint ahead; there was no way he could ever be faster than his older brother. And seeing him now … really, all Billy wanted was to be left alone.
He sighed and looked at the sprawling branches overhead, some so broad they overhung the fence bordering the campground. State-owned forest surrounded them, an unbroken mile of old growth forest in every direction. To the east, on the other side of the woods, a science lab sat behind its own network of fencing. Since Billy’s mom was his teacher, and she liked math and writing and not much else, he didn’t know much for science. Besides the lab, and Shucky’s Gas ’N Snack, there were only a few houses from Cherryhill to the outskirts of Silas Falls, a two-stoplight town six miles distant.
Charlie toyed with a long blade of grass.
“When we get there, their house will be empty,” Billy said.
“I know. All their stuff … it’s still there. Untouched.”
“Why can’t we just stay here? It makes no sense. Charlie, I don’t want to go.”
Charlie did a most unexpected thing—he placed his arm around his little brother. At first, Billy stiffened, thinking his brother would pepper his arm with punches or rap some noogies against his skull. But he did neither, and this small comfort was an okay thing. Actually, it was much more than okay. It was just what he needed.
They sat in a silence broken only by the occasional bird chirping from the lofty canopy of brittle leaves. Billy was about to suggest they should head back—his legs ached, so he didn’t want to ride any farther than it would take to get home—but a new sound stopped him short: an undulating wave of sorrow… moaning, wheezing, shuffling.
“What’s that?” Billy asked.
“Dunno.” Charlie stood, brushed the seat of his pants, and drifted toward the fence.
Snapping twigs, feet scraping along dirt, an occasional cry of longing …
Such a sad sound, Billy thought. So lonely.
“Charlie, wait.” Billy went after his brother. He got close to him, but stayed in his shadow off to the side, no longer at ease standing with him as equals.
Charlie pressed his fingers through the fence and brought his face close enough so that his nose rested in one of the gaps. “It can’t be,” he said softly.
“What is it?” Billy said, stepping closer.
“A horde. I’d heard about them, but I never believed …” He trailed off, staring at a section of fence that had been cut straight through along a fence pole. He had explained this petty vandalism to him before. Youth groups would often come to Cherryhill. Sometimes the teens would slip out in the middle of the night and smoke and drink on state land, their activities hidden from their sleeping chaperones.
“What’s a horde?”
Charlie hunched over, sizing up the damaged section of fence, and said, “Whoever cut the chain-link did a piss poor job trying to hide the fact.” He tried to pull the gap closed, but it was no use. He took a step back and sighed.
“Charlie, what the heck is it?” Billy demanded.
Rustling from the dense trees not more than fifty feet away intensified. Whoever was making that noise was in a large group, and seemingly in any number of directions.
“The undead.” His brother looked at him with an expression that was equal parts excitement and fear.
“What … what are you talking about, the undead?”
“It’s the flu. The people that died … they don’t stay dead. They turn into zombies.”
“You’re pranking me again, right?” Billy looked from his brother to the woods and then back again. “Please tell me you’re pranking me.”
What set Billy’s mind fully to the task of accepting the crazy idea of the walking undead was the woman stumbling free of the thorny underbrush, her skin like melted gray candlewax mottled with black bruises. Bloodless gashes had pulled wide across the hollows of both cheeks. Swarms of horseflies greedily landed on her many open wounds to feast. The woman lurched over the craggy ground. She wore a white lab coat over a once-robin-egg-blue business suit, which was now filthy and hung on her in tatters. One high heel shoe had lost its heel, while the other foot was bare and clumsily scrape-slapped the dirt ground.
Both brothers stood motionless, frozen in place by terror.
The undead woman walked parallel to the fence line directly in front of them. She paused, as if confused, and sniffed the air. After a few agonizing seconds, a moan escaped her ravaged throat. She shifted one foot forward, and then the other.
Billy’s heart throttled so furiously she would certainly hear it, would turn, fixing her crusted gray eyes on him. He held his breath for as long as he could, afraid the slightest sound would give away their location. When he finally took another breath, the smell hit him: the sewer stench of an overburdened outhouse somehow mixed with the cloying rot of a freezer full of meat that had turned; all that but worse.
Charlie took a step, keeping an eye on the zombie woman—luckily, she kept shuffling away—and grabbed Billy’s arm. He pulled him behind the tall oak with the branches reaching over the fence line.
“We have to do something,” Billy said, only now feeling confident enough to speak.
“You’re right,” Charlie said, peeking around the edge of the tree.
“You should ride home and tell Dad,” Charlie said. “I’ll cut some of these vines to tie the gap closed.”
“I’m not leaving you here by yourself, Charlie.”
“Yes, you are. If I don’t fix the fence, the whole damn horde will push through. And who knows how big it is?”
“But—”
“But, nothing. Get out of here, tell Dad what’s going on, then he can track down a phone to call the police. I’m serious. The undead kill without hesitating. That’s what they do. They kill people. Now, do what I say!”
Feeling like a kicked dog, Billy left the shelter of the tree trunk.
The dead woman in the tattered business suit was now thirty feet past the damaged fence, but there were different patches of movement throughout the undergrowth. Four, five, six people (no, undead, Billy reminded himself) shifted through the leaves and brambles. He had no way of knowing the full extent of the horde, but sensed these few shambling undead were the edge of a much larger whole.
Billy turned back to his brother and said, “I’m going, but as soon as you close that gap, you follow me home.”
“Yes, sir, little brother.” Charlie gave him a mock salute.
Billy picked up his bike from where he had let it fall to the grass. He walked it a good fifty feet, dreading every crunch of grave
l beneath his tread, before climbing onto it.
Charlie hacked at the underbrush, cutting long lengths of vines, then threaded them through the severed fence like a clumsy surgeon closing a fatal wound.
He left his older brother behind, even though he felt like he should turn back and help him finish. It felt wrong, but Billy also felt a measurable amount of relief.
A clean, crisp surging energy sent him ripping along the trail, an alive feeling.
After a few minutes, it was almost easy to dismiss what he had seen, what he had learned since leaving the house not more than an hour ago. The undead were real. Grandma and Grandpa were dead. Not only dead, but now numbered among the undead. He pictured the groaning, shambling undead woman in the soiled and bloody lab coat. The idea that his grandparents were now walking in that same haunting, lonely gait so far away in Florida made him want to sob.
CHAPTER 3
Billy coasted to a stop when he neared a fork in the road. The right was the most direct route back to his house; the left would loop him back toward the cabins and where he would most likely find his sister. He hesitated, not sure which way to take.
While he needed to find his dad as soon as possible, he didn’t want to couple the news of the zombie horde with the fact that he hadn’t yet found his sister. He groaned and let out a long sigh, and turned down the trail that would lead him back to Blake Tanner’s cabin. It wasn’t too far out of the way, and even if it took a few more minutes to get home, Billy didn’t want to risk losing any more of his family, even if his sister could be such a drama queen.
He soon reached the weedy gravel drive leading to Tanner’s cabin and pulled alongside a rusted truck. As he set his kickstand, glass shattered nearby, followed by the whipsaw of a heated argument. It had to be coming from Tanner’s cabin.
A couple black birds took wing, squawked their displeasure—either at Billy’s arrival or the ruckus inside the cabin, he didn’t know—before angling higher in the sky, lifting above the trees, higher still. After a few hasty beats of their broad wings, the birds abruptly changed course, giving off a pained cry as they winged out of sight. Only then did it occur to Billy that they changed their minds in mid-flight.
The horde.
Even the birds knew the danger.
Billy sent out a silent prayer that Charlie was safe, then put the birds out of mind and cautiously headed for the door. After raising his knuckles to knock on the roughhewn panels, he hesitated, listening.
“I told you, babe, I’m sorry.”
Blake Tanner, Billy thought. What did you do?
“I just don’t know what came over me. I snapped.”
“That’s all you got to say? You snapped? What, you’re some tough guy, some macho writer fuck who thinks he can slap his woman when she doesn’t mind her place!”
“I’m warning you, Kendra …” Tanner said before pausing, as if to consider his words.
Billy could hear his sister’s crying. He wanted to knock down the cabin door and slam into Tanner with everything he had.
“Listen,” Tanner said, his voice becoming soft and sugar-sweet, “you don’t know what it’s like. I’ve got this deadline I need to meet, and I’ve pissed away the whole summer.”
“Pissed it away? Is that what you call spending time with me?”
“That’s not what I meant, and you know it. I have people—very important editors, who are crazy enough to think I’ve got talent. Don’t you get it? They want to read my book. But my book isn’t finished. I spent my summer with you instead—and God, you know I love you—but now I have to work all-nighters for the next month just to have a shot at finishing it.”
“But you said I could stay at your apartment this winter!”
“Yeah, I know … but I need to stop playing house. I need for you to go to Florida, and I’ll go back to Concord. I’ll finish my book, and I’ll see you come springtime.”
After a lengthy silence, Kendra sniffled back her tears.
“You promise?”
“Promise.”
Billy couldn’t hear anything more, at least nothing intelligible. He guessed they were kissing, or whatever it was they did alone together. Billy shook his head and slammed his fist against the door. There was some shifting and shuffling from inside, and a few seconds later the door opened. Blake Tanner, bare-chested as usual, craned his mop of crazy locks outside.
“What?” Tanner barked.
A cloud of pot smoke wafted out the open door. Having spent his summers wandering the Cherryhill grounds, he was familiar with the rank odor.
Billy realized he had never spoken to Tanner, and that her sister’s boyfriend would probably have no idea who he was. He stammered, trying to find his words.
Billy finally said, “Uh, Kendra here?”
“Nope,” he replied and started to close the door.
“Wait!” Billy said.
“What now, kid? I’m really busy.”
“I know she’s in there. I heard her. I heard you two fighting.”
He wanted to boot the door wide with one step and slam his fist into Tanner’s jaw with the next. Instead, he shifted from foot to foot.
“Well, you did, now? Oh, that was nothing more than a lover’s spat.”
“Kendra!” Billy shouted.
Tanner grabbed a fistful of Billy’s collar and nearly yanked him off his feet. Up close, Tanner’s bloodshot eyes glimmered. He looked unstable, on the verge of violence.
“Billy, that you?” Kendra said.
Why hadn’t she come to the door?
“Yeah,” Billy said. “Something crazy’s going on. Big-time crazy.”
“What is it, kid?” Tanner said, relaxing his grip on his collar.
“Yeah, what is it?” Kendra said, appearing at Tanner’s side. She wrapped her arm around his bare waist. Her eyes were more bloodshot than Tanner’s. She was dazed, definitely stoned. And it was hard not to notice the swelling along her lip. “Come on, Billy. You haven’t stopped by Blake’s all summer, and now you’re here saying something crazy is going on.”
“Is it the undead?” Tanner said, hopeful.
“Blake!” Kendra said and rolled her eyes. “Stop trying to scare me!”
“Um … yeah,” Billy said. “A horde. Charlie and I were riding our bikes and saw it passing just outside the fence.”
Kendra crossed her arms, not believing a word, and said, “What? Come on now, Billy—”
“Where abouts?” Tanner cut in.
“The far northern stretch. I didn’t know anything about hordes or zombies or anything, but I guess they’re real.”
“You saw them? The zombies?”
“Well, we saw one,” Billy said.
“Did it get Charlie?” he asked, again with that unnerving hope in his voice.
“No, nothing like that. He’s trying to mend the fence.”
“They’re busting in?” Kendra asked.
“Nah, it was cut by those stupid stoner youth group kids,” Billy said, then realized he was talking to a couple of stoners.
“Those rich prick hypocrites,” Tanner said with disgust.
Kendra chewed her lower lip and paced.
“I told him I’d go right home to tell Dad,” Billy said, “but since your place isn’t too far out of the way, I thought I should let you know.” His confidence was on the rise. He shouldn’t feel sheepish, or that he was intruding. Not at all. He was here to save their hides. “If I were you,” he said, “I’d wait here until we can contact the police or army or whatever. So, anyway, now that you know, I should probably head on home.”
“The hell you are.” Tanner grabbed a grubby button-up shirt and slipped it on.
“What do you mean?” Billy said.
“Yeah, Blake,” Kendra said, “what exactly do you mean?”
“Hey, I’m j
ust thinking about your family. We can’t leave Charlie out there by himself. We’re going to swing by with my truck, pick him up, then get the hell out of there.”
CHAPTER 4
Kendra looked like she was going to protest, but the plan made plenty of sense. Even if Tanner’s only real interest was seeing the zombies, they could also save Charlie.
“Okay, but what about my bike?” Billy said.
Tanner walked outside past him. “Throw it in the back of my truck.”
Billy could almost lift the bike high enough, but in the end, Tanner hoisted it into the truck bed. Billy rode shotgun and Kendra sat in the middle. Tanner drove with one hand while he pawed Kendra’s thigh with the other. She wore the cut-off shorts their mom hated and one of Tanner’s old flannel shirts that was three sizes too big for her. She gazed at him with unwavering devotion, even as her swollen cheek continued to darken.
At first, Billy expected that they’d pick up Charlie, then all rush back to their house. And even as Charlie would try to explain the crazy events of the early day, their dad would see Kendra’s face. Dad, with his guns and hunting knives. Dad, with his nightmares and trembling hands from two tours in ’Nam. Billy smiled, thinking how things would play out, yet he couldn’t quite feel satisfied with that potential conclusion. Almost, but not quite.
“So, what was the fight about?” Billy said, feeling his anger rising.
“What fight?” Kendra said and turned toward him. She looked lost, fragile. Her eyes pleaded for him to drop the subject as she slowly shook her head: No.
It didn’t appear that Tanner heard them. He’d gone from pawing Kendra to fumbling with the radio, trying to tune in a station. The FM dial was an unbroken cloud of harsh static. The AM dial gave off an occasional blip of transmission, but the signal wasn’t strong enough.
“Damn it. Stupid hills.” Tanner gave up and shut off the radio. He smacked the steering wheel and then looked at Billy. “What were you saying, kid?”
Billy remembered hearing shattering glass when he’d first arrived at Tanner’s cabin, not to mention Kendra’s pleading eyes and swollen lip.