by Glen Krisch
“Billy, snap out of it,” Charlie said.
Billy stepped away from the double-locked door.
Their mom was now seated at the dining room table, staring at her hands, not really taking in anything from the outside world.
Charlie, on the other hand, looked terrified.
“We should have made a run for it,” Charlie said.
A pawing sound came from the front door, and Billy took another step back. It could have been from a lost puppy looking for shelter and a bowl of food.
Billy eyed the door suspiciously and said, “A little late now. We had to decide, and we decided. We’re doing what Dad wanted, remember?”
“Your dad. Where’s my Mark?”
“Mom—” Billy said.
“Don’t worry about it right now,” Charlie cut in. “Let’s just get through this. Okay?”
“Okay, dear. Okay …” she trailed off.
The pawing at the door intensified, becoming a violent, ungraceful pounding. It was no longer possible to believe the worst of their problems was a wayward puppy.
“Oh, shit,” Charlie said, running to the back of the house, “the back door.”
“I’ll check the windows up front,” Billy said.
“Good idea.”
Their mom still hadn’t moved from her spot at the dining room table.
Billy hurried around the front half of the house—the rustic living room, the tidy dining room, the small space his mom liked to call her “library.” He even checked the window at the end of the short hallway next to the stairs. Luckily, every window had been shuttered, and every window locked. He didn’t think a zombie could open a window, even if it was unlocked, but he felt somewhat safer knowing every available lock had been thrown.
He returned to the dining room and said, “Everything is locked and shuttered on this side of the house,”
Charlie met him there a moment later. “The back door and windows are all set, too.”
Somewhere at the front of the house, perhaps in the library, a window audibly cracked. This small accomplishment seemed to motivate the horde, for there was more feverish pounding against the glass, followed by more shattering. Soon, the shutters began to rattle, sending ribbons of sunlight dancing across the carpeted floor.
“Damn it,” Charlie muttered, running his fingers through his hair.
“What do we do?” Billy said.
His chest hurt from the crazed beating of his heart. It felt like he couldn’t take in a full breath, that the walls weren’t crumbling under the violent advance of the horde, but closing in on him as well. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes when pinprick stars shot across his vision.
“Hey, man, you okay?”
“Yeah … just … can’t breathe …” Billy gasped.
Charlie came over and patted his back, and Billy was soon able to take a deeper breath, then an even deeper one. He opened his eyes and offered his brother a weak smile.
Charlie’s frightened expression softened and he said, “We need to get to higher ground.”
“Upstairs?”
“Even better: the attic. The three of us can fit up there then pull up the staircase.”
“Okay, and then what? We just stay up there forever?”
“I don’t know, Billy. I just don’t know. But we’re running out of options. The house is surrounded, so making a run for it is out of the question. It’s not like we can call in the National Guard; the phone’s been shut off. We’ll just have to wait and see.”
“Let’s get going then,” Billy said.
More glass shattered from the rear of the house. Something heavy fell, crashing against the kitchen floor, and it took a moment to realize it was most likely the wooden shutter.
“Ready, Mom?” Charlie said, hooking his hand under her arm to help her to her feet.
“For what, dear?” she said, perplexed with her son’s agitation.
“We have to go,” Charlie said.
“It’ll be like an adventure,” Billy added.
Charlie raised his brows at the suggestion, and Billy could only shrug.
Their mom smiled, totally unaware of the danger surrounding them.
“Oh, I’d like that,” she said.
“Good,” Charlie said. “So, the first thing we have to do is go upstairs. Think you can manage that, Mom?”
“Yes, I might be getting older, but I can still make it up the stairs.”
“Okay,” Charlie said, and then to Billy: “I need you to help Mom. I’ll be up in a minute.”
“Remember what he said. ‘Don’t get separated.’”
“I promise I’ll be right behind you. I’m just going to get a jug of water and snacks.”
Another heavy crash issued from the kitchen. All the windows in the front half of the house had been shattered, and so grimed, bloodless fingers probed the gaps in the shutters, searching for weakness, entry, flesh. Most of the shutters looked on the verge of falling to pieces; more and more sunlight streaked the carpet and walls in stroboscopic intensity as the undead battered their way inside.
Billy felt paralyzed.
There was no way he wanted to leave his brother downstairs with the zombies closing in. He couldn’t force Charlie to follow him into the attic. There was no way he would listen, and there was no time to argue.
CHAPTER 10
“You better hurry up then because I’m not leaving you behind,” Billy said with more conviction than he felt.
“Fine!” Charlie barked, then hurried into the kitchen. The first thing he did was grab a plastic grocery bag from under the sink. He threw it at Billy as he and their mom followed. “Open that up.”
One of the shutters covering the windows in the glassed-in breezeway leading to the garage came crashing in. A zombie started crawling through the opening, but caught its exposed ribs on the shards of glass lining the window. It railed in anger, slashing its fingers through the air as if it might snatch Billy from ten feet away. Other zombies pushed in after the first, crawling over the writhing body as if it were a drawbridge leading inside a castle.
Billy held the bag wide, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the zombies inside the breezeway. There was nothing more between them than a single pane of glass.
“Charlie,” he said. “We need to go, like right now.”
Charlie tossed soda and crackers and a few cans of spam into the bag.
“Just a sec,” Charlie said, seemingly unaware.
“Ah!” Mom called out.
A zombie had bitten into the meat of the side of her neck.
“Mom! No!” Billy dropped the bag, scattering supplies across the kitchen floor.
Her eyes were wide in pain and fright as he ran to her. She slowly reached out, clasping his hands in hers. Billy pulled, trying to break the zombie’s hold, but it was no use. The zombie snarled, its teethed buried deep, its gray mottled skin speckled in crimson. Billy pulled at his mom’s hand desperately, but it only increased the zombie’s resolve. It latched its arms around her torso, trying to force her to the ground.
More glass shattered from all around, but Billy didn’t care. The light in his mom’s eyes began to fade and her lips murmured something he couldn’t quite hear.
“Take that, you piece of shit!” Charlie said, smashing a meat tenderizing hammer against its skull.
The zombie released its bite, fell over in a heap, dead a second time over.
“Oh, shit,” Charlie said, slamming the hammer into another that had breached the breezeway’s sliding glass door.
Billy went to his mom’s side and held her hand. Her lips were still moving, and he lowered his ear to them.
“Dear Lord, save my babies. Dear Lord, save my babies …”
He felt a gust of breath on his ear, then nothing. He squeezed her hand and looked i
nto vacant eyes. She was gone.
“Billy,” Charlie said, tugging on his arm, “we gotta split!”
Charlie smashed the skulls of two more zombies, but their numbers were only coming faster. The breezeway now looked like a holding pen for the undead, and they were all attacking the glass in full force.
Billy saw movement down the short hall leading to the front of the house: three zombies shambling his way. He stood, realizing how precarious their situation had become. A dozen were in the breezeway, slowly funneling their way into the kitchen. Others in the living room.
“But Mom …” he said, his voice cracking with emotion.
“Don’t think about it. Not now, Billy. Come on!”
Charlie tugged on his arm, and he staggered a few steps away from their mom. When he glanced down, he did a double take. Her head twitched. And then her left hand.
“Charlie, wait. She’s alive! We can’t leave her.”
Her eyes flashed open, full of intense rage and limitless hunger.
More zombies pushed in through the breezeway, now only feet away.
Charlie stood motionless, stunned.
Billy grabbed the kitchen hammer from his grip, turned, and slammed the heavy head into the closest zombie. The flow through the breezeway wasn’t letting up and their pressed-together bodies blocked out the sunlight. The living room hallway was no better.
Something snapped in his head. His immediate fear either disappeared or had been cordoned off in his brain. “Charlie, the pantry. It’s our only chance.” He shoved his brother toward the pantry door.
Their mom twitched even more, her every limb now animated. She sat up at the waist, working to get her feet under her, but Billy didn’t let her get that far. The hammer caught her square in the right temple. She never regained her feet. Never became a member of the horde.
It was the smallest bit of consolation, but it was all Billy had. He hammered three more skulls in quick succession, and then headed toward the pantry.
He stepped into the murk, and closed the wooden slatted door. Bars of light crept through, lining his brother’s face.
“There’s no way …” Charlie muttered. “No place to go. It’s over … we’re done.”
Billy grabbed the step stool stashed in the corner and wedged it under the doorknob. The pantry had always been a pleasant place for him: full of cookies and snacks, their mom’s baking supplies; the air of the closed-in room smelled of cinnamon, vanilla, and sugar. He looked around, but there really was no other place to go. The floor was at most three feet by five. Shelves lined the walls on all three sides.
At once, multiple zombies crashed against the pantry door, gyrating the bars of light. The step stool held, but wouldn’t last long.
“Up,” Billy said.
“What?”
“We go up. It’s the only way. Climb the shelves.”
Charlie started climbing the shelving on the left, and Billy took the ones on the right. Canned goods and bags of sugar fell around them.
A zombie fist broke through the wooden slats, the step stool wobbling.
“Billy,” Charlie said as he reached the highest shelf. He shoved the supplies there to the pantry floor. It was dusty up there, and as Billy joined him, they both pulled their legs up as far as they would go.
“Yes?”
A zombie pulled through the broken pantry door, to the waist. The step stool fell aside, and the door pushed in, slamming the zombie into the far wall.
“Billy, I love you. I know I didn’t always show it. I was mostly a dick do you … but, really, I love you.”
Billy choked up and tears filled his eyes.
“I love you too, brother.”
Charlie grabbed a heavy economy-size can of green beans and dropped it on one of the zombies, caving in its skull. Others soon took its place.
It didn’t appear the zombies knew how to climb. They filled the entire pantry floor, ten or more pairs of hands held high, grasping as if in prayer or redemption.
As Billy’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, he noticed the outline of an access panel in the ceiling. “What’s that? Does that lead to the attic?”
“No, the attic is above the second floor, not the kitchen.”
“So what is it?”
Charlie leaned out over the chasm, pressing his fingers against the panel. It shifted slightly in its frame. “This must lead to the fixtures for the second-floor bathroom.”
“I don’t get it.”
“You ever see the pipes for the shower? For the toilet?”
“Aren’t they in the walls?”
“Yeah, but you need a way to access them. The plumber would work from down here to fix the shower pipes.”
“Is there room?” Billy asked, hopeful.
“I guess we’ll find out, now won’t we?”
The undead below had started to pile up on one another. Even if they couldn’t climb the shelving, they were getting closer to Charlie and Billy by climbing the growing pile of bodies.
Charlie scooted out as far as he could on the shelf, and gave the panel a hard shove. It was tight in the frame, but slid up and to the side.
“Pay dirt,” Charlie said.
“Hurry, they’re getting closer!”
“Just hang tight. Watch how a professional does it.” Charlie attempted one of his cocky smiles, but couldn’t quite pull it off. As he pushed off to pull himself into the opening in the ceiling, the shelving on his side of the pantry collapsed. One shelf fell, hit the one below it, sending them all down in a cascading collapse.
“Charlie!” Billy cried, reaching out for his brother. He stretched as far as he could. Charlie—on his back on the fallen wooden shelves—rode a choppy zombie sea. He somehow gained his feet and reached out for little brother.
Billy’s own shelf started to squeal as it pulled loose from the wall. Still, he reached, and Charlie’s fingers only inches away …
The shelves under Charlie shifted, and hands pushed through the new-formed gaps, taking hold of his ankles. The boards shifted more, enough so that their ugly faces appeared in the gaps. One zombie bit down on Charlie’s foot, and another on his calf.
“Charlie!”
Their eyes met briefly, and then Charlie retracted his hand, just as the horde pushed in over the boards, swallowing him. His shrill scream seemed to echo in the small confines of the pantry and would surely follow Billy to the grave; so full of agony and fear that it could only lead to madness.
Billy choked back a sob, and then reached out for the panel opening. It was too far away. The shelf below him let out another loud groan, and then the whole wall—the shelf, the metal shelf bracket and the drywall itself—started to collapse.
He jumped for the opening, caught hold of the edge of it in a steel grip. The tumult below him didn’t end, even as his brother’s cries trailed off. He was too afraid to look down. Instead, he focused his entire mind to the task of pulling himself up inside the opening. He pulled with all his might, his arms quaking, his brow furrowing and breaking out in sweat. When his eyes cleared the panel, he found the space above narrow, dark, and musty.
A number of hands lashed out at his dangling feet, clawing, tugging. Sharp barbs coursed through his left ankle as a zombie twisted his foot until he felt the bones within snapping. He cried out in agony, nearly gave up, nearly let himself fall into the waiting horde, but something inside didn’t let him. He pulled his knees up instead, close to his chest, out of reach of the horde. Then he swung his head back, with his knees pinned to his chest. He hung upside down from his hands for a moment, but was able to hook his legs inside the opening. Once his legs were secure, he pulled the rest of his body into the opening and out of danger.
He’d done it. This morning he would’ve never imagined the courage and strength he would later find within himself.
On his side, he panted for breath. He reached above him and encountered the ceiling of this small space a mere arm-length away. He stretched his hands over his head, felt the pipes leading to the second-floor shower. His feet bumped the far wall.
Billy was in a space no bigger than a coffin.
Instead of feeling the limits of the space so claustrophobically close, he curled into a ball. For a long time, he rocked himself, but it was of little comfort.
His broken ankle cried out in pain, and in the darkness, everything else drifted away but that feeling. He traced his fingers over the wound. Something sharp poked against the skin, and he realized with some revulsion that it was a bone fragment. Even still, he probed, at least as much as the superficial pain would allow. On the back of his calf, Billy encountered a pinprick hole, and then another. He ran his fingers across the wounds until he was certain. The semi-circular pattern was that of a bite wound.
Tightness filled his chest, so much so that he couldn’t breathe, his heart being squeezed in a fist. He gasped and sputtered and struggled to keep the air—the last breath he’d ever take.
Billy’s vision expanded—pushing away the darkness of the access cabinet—and tinged with a deep blood red. He no longer needed to blink. There was no other need in his entire existence but to feed.
He tried to sit up, but his head slammed into the ceiling. He scurried around on his side, seeking a way out, a path that would lead him to flesh.
Warm, salty flesh.
He reached out for purchase, but his hand touched nothing but air. His momentum sent him tumbling through the opening. And when he crashed to the ground, his head hit nothing more than the broken shelving—the zombies long ago abandoning the house, seeking living flesh—and Billy’s red-tinged vision emptied to nothing as his skull split open on impact.
CHAPTER 11
Their dad didn’t want them to ever separate; it was his dying wish. And while Billy had promised to never leave his brother, something deep inside told him that this time staying together would be their demise. He couldn’t rationalize the feeling, just that it was overpowering.