by Glen Krisch
The van tipped until it was level in the water, and the zombies closed on him, their desperate grasping hands tearing at his feet, stripping off a shoe, tugging on his pant legs.
“Come on!” he shouted, and punched the glass with his fist, and then the glass broke apart, and water flooded the air bubble.
The rush of water pressed him against the driver’s seat at first, but once the air bubble was gone, he was able to kick away from the seat and swim up through the shattered windshield.
He broke the surface of the filthy water, crying, scarcely able to catch his breath.
Zombies bobbed nearby, their skulls and flailing arms a morbid mockery of swimming. And still they closed on him. Still, they gathered at the water’s edge and submitted their rotting bodies to the murk. The far shore—about thirty feet away—wasn’t as crowded, so he kicked and swam for it.
He swept forward, picturing Keely’s warm smile, imagining her gentle fingertips pushing through his hair. He’d lost the knife somewhere along the way. It would’ve certainly come in handy when he got to the shore, but he couldn’t imagine using it again. Not after killing that boy.
He was already dead, he thought. He just didn’t know it yet.
Soto’s breathing became ragged, and he had to pause and tread water to catch his breath.
There was a narrow gap in the milling zombies. If he could only reach it …
He wiped stinging water from his eyes, and when he looked at his palm, he noticed blood welling and dripping away. He pressed the skin, confirming his suspicions. Blood pooled in six or seven well-defined bite marks.
He didn’t know when exactly it happened, but he supposed it didn’t matter.
“So God damn close!” he shouted, and his voice excited the zombies even more.
If only he still had the knife, he’d slit his own throat. He dived underwater, kicking until he reached the bottom. He took hold of a submerged log and looked around. The water was awash with undead, lumbering along the pond bottom, moving with sludgy speed. Their bodies were outlined by the sun, twitching corpses intent on feeding on his flesh.
Soto let the last of his air escape his lungs, and watched it bubble up to break the surface. He wondered if he could stay submerged long enough to escape this today, or if he would have to wait for a zombie’s bite to strip him of his humanity.
CHAPTER 19
Tanner closed his bloodshot eyes and smiled dopily as Billy looked away from him and to his brother, then back to the scumbag who’d beaten their sister.
A voice in the back of his head told him to just step away, just step away and let adults deal with adult matters. But it was such a small voice that he easily shoved it aside in favor of vengeance; he cocked back his fist and delivered a hard uppercut to Blake Tanner’s offered chin.
Tanner staggered back on his heels, his back curving into an inverted J, and he let out a grunt that turned into a deep chuckle. When he steadied his feet, and his eyes stopped spinning long enough to focus, his face filled with unhindered rage.
Billy fully grasped the ramifications of this very adult act of violence, took a step back, followed quickly by two more, the second of which made him bump into Charlie’s mangled arm.
Charlie cried out, said woozily, “Damn it, Billy!”
“You shouldn’t have done that, kid,” Tanner said and stepped toward him, the wiry muscles in his arms tensing.
“You shouldn’t have hit my sister,” Billy said.
“I did no such thing.”
“The hell you didn’t. I saw her face. No amount of makeup can cover up what you did.”
“You little piss-ant piece of shit.”
Tanner lunged and grabbed him in a choke hold.
Billy thrashed in his grasp, but for his every panicked exhalation, Tanner tightened the vice of his bicep and forearm against his throat, the pressure on his Adam’s apple making him cough and sputter. He couldn’t get air. Blood pooled at his temples, darkening his vision.
“Let him go, Tanner,” Charlie said.
Tanner replied, but the blood rushing in Billy’s ears didn’t allow him to understand. The dark interior of the cabin dimmed even more as his brain cried out for oxygen.
Billy’s vision resolved for a moment when Tanner loosened his grip long enough to backhand Charlie in the face. His brother’s head flew back, but when his arms went flailing, he stumbled forward, cradling his arm.
The cabin’s door swung open, bringing in fresh autumn air and brilliant sunlight. Kendra stormed inside, pointing Tanner’s old handgun at him.
“Let him go, Blake!”
“Woah, woah, just a second. This isn’t what it looks like, babe. Your kid brother punched me in the face.”
“I mean it. Let him go, now!”
“Babe, this is self-defense,” Tanner said and shoved Billy aside. “This is stupid.”
Jelly-legged, Billy fell over the rumpled cot, his head pounding as blood rushed back to fill the void.
Tanner rushed forward, reaching for the gun. “Just gimme the damn—”
Kendra pulled the trigger, and Tanner’s head jerked back, his blood spattering everything in a sticky hot rain.
Billy stared at his sister in gruesome wonder. He touched his face, looking for wounds, but he seemed unharmed. His fingers came away tacky with Tanner’s blood.
Smoke trailed from the gun’s barrel, mingling with residual pot smoke. Kendra blinked a few times, looked down at the sprawled form of her dead lover, and then tossed the gun onto a heap of dirty clothes.
“Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!” she muttered nonsensically. She paced the small cabin, even as Billy remained staring, unmoving, uncomprehending.
“Kendra …” Charlie said, shuffling to her side. As Charlie held his injured arm protectively against his stomach, his brother surprised him for the second time that day with his tenderness; this time, he gently rested his fingers on Kendra’s shoulder and said, “You okay?”
Kendra seemed to snap out of it and shrugged him away. Her eyes settled on Tanner. “I’m fine, oh fuck, I killed him, oh my God!”
“You had to, Ken. He was going to hurt you. Hurt you more than he already has.”
“You saved me,” Billy said, his voice weak and his throat scratchy. He stood from the cot and tried to wipe the stickiness from his face.
“I loved him,” she said. “I loved Blake Tanner, and I was going to marry him! But I killed him!”
“Kendra, listen to me!” Billy shouted, finding his voice, and both siblings looked at him sharply. “He was hurting you. He was choking me, and he smacked Charlie, and Charlie has a broken arm. You did what you had to do.”
Kendra stopped pacing in front of the body. She stood for a number of seconds, staring at Tanner’s unmoving form. His left eye was open and had filled with blood.
“We have to get out of here,” she said. “I don’t know what to do about this … any of this.” She waved her hands high above her head and added, “but we have to get Charlie to a hospital. And we have to tell Dad about the horde.”
“Okay, let’s get out of here,” Charlie said.
A ring of keys waited on the kitchenette table. Billy picked them up and rattled them and said, “Are these for the truck?”
“Thank God they weren’t in his pocket,” Kendra said, holding up her hand.
Billy tossed the keys to her.
She flipped through the ring until she found the ignition key and said, “Let’s go.”
In obvious agony, but putting up a brave front, Charlie was the first to the door. He opened it and hobbled outside.
The pungent odors of spent gunpowder and pot smoke lingered in the air, but the damning headiness of spilled blood nearly overpowered both.
“You had no choice,” Billy said.
“Yeah, I did, Billy.” Kendra p
ushed her hand through her long blonde hair and looked down at Tanner. “I should’ve left the first time he hit me. But I didn’t. That was two months ago. I chose to stay. I had a choice, and I made it and it was the wrong one.”
Kendra lifted her upper lip in a disgusted snarl, and kicked Tanner’s lifeless body in the ribs and turned away without looking back. When she reached the doorway, she slowed long enough to say, “Grab the gun,” before walking out into the late morning sunshine.
Billy hurried past Tanner’s body, fearing that at the last moment he would latch onto his ankle, or perhaps give off one of those pathetic, lonely moans he’d heard coming from the horde in the woods. He almost forgot about the gun, but reached down and snagged it by its old wooden grip.
Kendra already had the truck started and revved the engine, and as Billy ran toward the open passenger door, he couldn’t help thinking: I’m running with a gun in my hand. I’m holding a gun that just murdered someone …
He hopped inside, and Kendra sped away, the three of them leaving Tanner’s cabin behind. For quite some time, Billy stared ahead as the trees whipped by in a blur. The gun felt heavy in his lap. His palm tingled with dark excitement at how the handle molded to his skin. Sickened by the feeling, he set the gun on the floor between his feet.
“Dad will know what to do,” Billy said when he sat back up.
“Yeah,” Kendra said with a roll of her eyes, “like Dad always knows what to do.”
“He always does what’s right for the family.”
“At least that’s what he likes to say, anyway,” Kendra said.
Billy wasn’t sure why she was always down on their dad.
Charlie hadn’t said a word since they pulled away, probably unable to get a word out with how tightly he clenched his teeth.
Kendra pulled the truck around the curve that would take them back home. A fork in the road led to the entrance to the grounds. She eased the truck to a stop, letting the engine idle.
“Now what, Ken?” Billy said. “You’re not thinking of doing something stupid, are you?”
CHAPTER 20
Charlie held his twisted arm protectively in his lap. Kendra’s face paled, and then she stepped on the accelerator and eased down the right-hand fork leading to Cherryhill’s front gate.
“What the heck are you doing? Home’s the other way,” Billy said.
“Can Mom set a broken bone? Can Dad? No, I don’t think so. We’re going straight to Silas Falls General.”
“But what about—” Billy started before she silenced him with a raised index finger.
“Mom and Dad are always on my case about making the mature decision. Well, if they don’t see this as a mature decision, then I don’t know what to think,” she said, slowing after she passed through the open gate. “They just don’t want to admit that I’m practically an adult.”
Kendra shifted into park, and then hopped out of Tanner’s truck. She hurried to the gate and pulled it closed, secured the hasp, and even double-checked to make sure it was in place. When she got back in, she offered him a snarky smile. “See, yet another mature decision.”
“Ken …” Billy said as he looked at his brother. Charlie wasn’t looking very good at all. “You’re right. Charlie needs help.”
“Finally, one of the Upton men is making some sense.”
“Make that two,” Charlie said in a hoarse whisper. Uttering those few words seemed to trigger more pain. He rocked forward and back, cradling his arm.
“Finally!” Kendra said again, trying in vain to lighten the mood.
Billy passed the next several miles staring either helplessly at Charlie, or at the dirt road ahead, the whole time wishing they lived closer to Silas Falls. So many things had thrown him for a loop today, even discounting the reality of zombies walking the earth. The compassion he’d seen in Charlie had been a revelation. And then, witnessing not only Kendra defending her brothers, but literally silencing Tanner forever … Billy would’ve never believed she would’ve turned on Tanner so decisively. The world had changed in so many ways in the last few hours that it was hard for his brain to process it all.
When the road transitioned to blacktop, Billy knew they were close.
“Almost there, Charlie,” he said. “Just hold on.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” Charlie said with an agonized grunt. He continued to rock, now with his eyes closed.
At the outskirts of the village, a concussive bang sounded, followed by several others in quick succession.
“Did you hear that?”
“Fireworks?” Kendra said.
Billy unrolled his window and said, “Those weren’t fireworks.”
“What else could it be?” Kendra said, then sucked in a breath, as if understanding.
“I thought the horde was back by Cherryhill?” Billy said.
He searched the normally well-kept yards on the outskirts of town. Newly fallen leaves remained in untidy drifts against picket fences. A large tree branch had crashed against the hood of a station wagon parked in a driveway, and there it remained.
The town seemed deserted, felt deserted.
“You saw the horde for yourself, right?” Kendra said.
Billy nodded and said, “We heard a bunch in the state park, but one up close. Her skin was gray and pulling apart with rot, and the horseflies swarming … she didn’t seem to notice—”
“Right,” she cut in. “But that doesn’t mean it’s limited to back home. It’s either one big-ass population of zombies, or there’s more than one horde.”
Either thought was chilling.
Billy’s stomach twisted with nausea. He never imagined they would be at risk once they left Cherryhill behind.
There was more sporadic gunfire, and Billy tried to determine if it was one-sided, but couldn’t say either way. On the one hand, he hoped it was one-sided—that would mean there wasn’t some kind of battle going on among the people of Silas Falls; on the other hand, it would also mean the zombie issue was more widespread than he imagined.
The picturesque streets of downtown Silas Falls passed by in ghostly silence. It was a small town, no more than a village, but had a good-sized grocery store, two hardware stores, several restaurants, and most important, Silas Falls General, which served the surrounding communities for fifty miles or more. Two blocks of old Victorians transitioned to a charming down town with quaint shops. The road led to a roundabout that circled the city hall building and a park with swings and monkey bars.
“Jesus, look,” Kendra said, pulling over to the curb.
She pointed to a dead boy sprawled at the edge of the park. His eyes were open, staring vacantly into the canopies of oaks with their lingering brown leaves. His neck was nearly gone, eaten away to the exposed white of his spine. His torso torn open and his organs devoured.
“Who could do that?” Kendra said, her eyes filling with tears. “He’s just a little boy!”
“We better keep moving,” Billy suggested.
“We can’t just leave him there. Where are all the God damn people?” Kendra turned to Billy, imploring: “Who could let something like that happen?”
Billy sensed movement through the windshield. He gasped, and his sister turned at his reaction. The little boy, no more than seven or eight, sat up and then stiffly stood.
“Let’s get out of here!” Kendra said.
“Good idea! Get moving!”
Kendra shook her head as if just remembering she was the one driving, and then stomped on the gas. As the truck sped away, the undead boy started following them, albeit with a slow, lurching gait, and through his still opened window, Billy heard the boy’s hungered cry. Young vocal chords articulated a plea as any child wanting his favorite cookie or some other comfort.
Kendra shifted a hand from the steering wheel to the handgun in her lap—Tanner’s gun. A th
ought played out across her features. She was thinking about going back to the little boy, but she blinked away her tears and returned her hand to the wheel.
Billy rolled up his window as Kendra whipped them through the rest of the roundabout before turning down Hubbert Street.
“Just another few blocks,” Kendra said to Charlie, as if nothing had occurred, as if they hadn’t seen a ravaged boy’s dead body sit upright and start after them like they were the most appealing meal possible.
At the next intersection, the streets were not so empty. A defensive wall made of cars and trucks stacked twenty-feet high had been hastily erected around the perimeter of the hospital. People moved along the top of the defense, which was covered with scavenged metal scaffolding. Thankfully, these people were moving about like living human beings.
Billy felt a sense of belonging.
Kendra slowed to a stop. She opened her door, looked around to make sure the coast was clear, and then got out.
“Ken, wait a second,” Billy said, but she didn’t hesitate.
“That’s far enough,” a heavy-set woman said from the bed of a pickup at the top of the wall. She wore mechanic’s coveralls and had a cigarette tucked into the corner of her mouth. “Show me your hands!” She pointed an AR15, eager to see if they would comply.
CHAPTER 21
Billy could tell the wall wasn’t quite complete. Off to the side, two men were standing in the street, helping to guide a flatbed truck pushing a semitrailer to fill a gap in the improvised wall. All along the perimeter, groups of adults shoveled sand into bags to plug smaller gaps.
Kendra showed her empty hands and said, “We need to get to the hospital. My brother, he broke his arm. He needs a doctor.”
“Is he bit?” the woman asked, holding her AR15 trained on Kendra.
“No, of course not. He’s got a broken arm from a bicycle accident. Please, just let us in to see the doctor.”
“How did you get around the roadblocks?” the woman asked.