“We’re leaving the house.”
“Why?”
“Doc is packing and leaving. I gave up. We’re going too. I can’t let them go out there on their own and get killed.”
“You think you’re reasonable for them.”
“Yes, no, Jesse I just can’t lose any more people. Don’t fight me on this. Please just go pack your stuff.” Nick was defeated. I could hear it in his voice. There was no way I would contest this move. I would not add to his dismay. I’m sure Joe probably had harsh words.
“I’m going to go pack my stuff.”
“Thanks.” Nick grabbed my face and planted a peck on my lips. I wanted to ask if Joe was on board with the move but I didn’t want to enrage Nick in any way. He was controlling his anger and I had the good sense to realize it.
I made my way upstairs and ran into Kait in the hall.
“Jess, you’re coming with us to the mall?” Kait asked.
“Yes.” I reluctantly said and I could see the glee sparkle in Kait’s eyes. Teenage girls and the mall, the mall must hold fond memories for Kait.
I trekked up to the attic and packed my limited amount of items. I put Ray’s Nintendo DSi in the zip part of my backpack. Nick came in and retrieved my belongings along with his. After an hour alone in the attic, it was time to leave. I took a brief moment to look at the picture of St. Michael slaying Satan at the top of the stairs.
Everyone was downstairs waiting to jump in our designated vehicles and go. Joe was quiet and emotionless, standing against the wall. Naveen had adopted Joe’s posture. I looked up at the circular wall clock. I wanted to take it with us for some reason. I walked up to it and read the time, one, twenty-eight. I didn’t remove the clock. I just followed the group as we exited our safe haven and moved to what I prayed would be the next. Yes I prayed.
We are on the road; on our way to what we all hope is a better, safer way of life. I’m in the Camaro with Nick. Malik is with us in the backseat. We are leading this wayward caravan. Joe is behind us in the mail truck with Naveen. Doctor Mark takes up the rear with Brandon in his passenger seat and Kait and Michelle in the backseats. There is something up ahead. Nick seems to notice it just as I do.
“What is that?” I ask Nick.
“I can’t make it out yet?”
Nick drives at the same speed but our focus gets clearer as we approach the, I don’t know.
Malik leans in between Nick and my seats. “What the fuck?” Malik utters.
Now it is clear. There were three deadies clawing at a wooden telephone pole in this side of the highway. They were after human flesh. A few feet above them, exactly what they craved. A woman is tied to the wooden telephone pole. She was a bottle blonde and completely nude. She was sunburned all over. How long had she been out here? Was she still alive, it wasn’t likely?
“Shit, do you see this shit?” Nick asked us though it was evident we were looking at the same torturous sight. Nick started to reduce the Camaro’s speed.
Malik was practically in the front seat with us. “Who would do some fucked up shit like that?”
I had an idea, a flash of one possibility but I felt it best to keep such ramblings to myself.
“Is she alive?” Nick asked but we didn’t bother to answer. The blonde woman was high enough that the deadies were not able to reach her.
Nick stopped the Camaro a short distance from the grisly sight. “I’m going to get her down.”
“Why, she’s probably dead.” Malik said what I was thinking.
“I don’t know that.” Nick said to Malik.
Nick grabbed his Glock from under the driver’s seat and checked the clip. The three deadies had taken notice of us. I realized I recognized the blonde woman. I had briefly seen her at my old camp. They called her Bunny but I was sure that wasn’t her real name. The last time I laid eyes on her she wasn’t in a condition to much better than her condition today. Why would they do this to her? Then again why did they do anything they did? I have tried to block the savages out but they keep renting space in my mind and today they rent space in my eyes.
I turned back and I could see that Joe had stopped the mail truck behind us. Doctor Mark had stopped his Escalade behind the mail truck. Nick opened his door and stepped out as the three gross deadies bid their way toward our vehicle. I held my Colt .45 in my hands and I opened my door.
I hadn’t noticed Joe had jumped out the mail truck. He must have crossed over from his driver’s side to my passenger side quickly because he was at my door before I could step both feet out.
“Stay in Vicky, I got this.” Joe nodded as he jogged by me with his Ruger rifle.
I stepped back in the car but kept my door open. Malik was hanging on my shoulder waiting to see the show.
“Look at these macho muthafuckas.” Malik joked. I thought Nick and Joe could handle three deadies out in open land without distractions but things have a tendency to go wrong in this world of deadies.
The three deadies were shuffling toward our macho muthafuckas. There was a tall man with a dead arm that swung back and forward, an old fat man that resembled a dead Christopher Cringle, with a long white bloody beard and a black lady with short bright orange dreadlocks.
“I got Santa.” Joe yelled out as he raised his gun and aimed it for the jolly old deadie.
BLAM! Santa was dead with a bullet in his head. His big round body hit the ground in slow motion.
“Carrot top.” Nick called out. BLAM! He shot the black woman deadie in the head. Her body twisted around and fell on the line that divides the shoulder from the road.
“Nick,” Joe called. “I got 99 problems--”
“And a freak ‘aint one.” Nick chimed in.
BLAM! BLAM! Two shots from two guns take down the last deadie. They blow his face off. It’s gross to watch. It’s a gruesome roadside drive-in movie in 3D.
“I’ll get the girl.” Joe jogs over to the telephone pole and Nick follows. Joe hands Nick his rifle. Joe pulls a hunting knife out but I didn’t see from where. He places the knife in his mouth.
Joe does his best Spiderman impersonation as he climbs the pole and cuts the rope that binds Bunny’s feet. Her feet dangle as they are now free and lifeless. Is she dead? Joe climbs farther up the pole with his body covering Bunny’s body. He reaches up and cuts the rope that has her arms bond high above her head. Her arms flop down and rest on Joe’s shoulders. I look and try to find out how Joe inches his way down the pole and brings Bunny’s lifeless body down with him. Quicker than I thought possible he was down and Nick was helping him place Bunny on the grass near the shoulder the road.
“These dudes are unfuckin’ believable.” Malik said and I realized I forget he was watching the action over my shoulder.
I couldn’t see what Nick and Joe were doing as they hovered over Bunny’s body but in seconds they were standing over her. Joe bent down and picked her up in both his arms. He carried her pass my car door as Nick followed him.
Nick stopped and leaned into my open door. “She’s breathing. She’s still alive. We’re going to put her in the mail truck.”
“Okay.” I didn’t know what else to say. Nick jogged off behind us. I could tell he was happy. To find a live person in a world full of the dead is a great feat.
I heard the sliding mail truck door open and shut.
Nick was back in the Camaro. I closed my door and he pulled off without a word.
“Did you check her for bites?” Malik asked from the backseat and I forgot all about her possibly being infected.
“We checked her.” Nick said. “There were no bites.”
I looked at Nick. He looked at me and we just drove in silence until we made it to Fox Valley Mall.
CHAPTER 14
We are at the mall. I had never been to this mall. It’s too far from the Chicago. The mall was huge like most American malls. We gained entry through the loading dock at Macy’s on the lower level. Breaking in was never a problem for us. Macy’s was too big of a de
partment store. It has three levels so we all went into the mall to set up camp.
Naveen and Joe took up residence in Panera Bread. They took the blonde that I call Bunny with them. She was unconscious I wasn’t sure she would make it through the rest of the day.
The doctor, Michelle, Kait and Brandon decided the stay inside H & M clothing store. I’m not sure why. There was no place to sleep in there. There was just the one lone couch in the employee’s break room. Panera bread had tables’ chairs and couches. Malik took a residence alone at the Sprint cellphone store.
Nick and I picked a small shoe store called Aldo’s. We could use the cushion couch chairs to sleep on. There was plenty of space and not all the stupid clothing racks. We decided to put a few sheets up on the stores gate for privacy. We would push the couches together or just sleep on the carpeted floor until we went to the bedding store and grabbed a mattress. There was one in this mall I saw it on the mall directory that was a few feet away from the shoe store entrance. We were all in close proximity to each other. If one of us yelled out throw the gates the others would hear. Plus we still had the walkie-talkies so we could keep in touch if need be.
The electricity was on, the water was running. Maybe this move will work out in our favor. It was nice to see people smiling for a change. Kait had changed into a cute little dress and heels that were on a display mannequin in the H & M store window. She pranced around a little showing off like teens do. She was at ease and it was nice to see. Brandon was brooding around grief stricken, the mirror image of his father.
Most of our belongings were moved in. Nick and I had a few things left in the mail truck so we went through Macy’s department store to get our last load.
We grabbed our last three trash bags, mostly food. Nick lowered the truck’s sliding back door.
“Let me make sure the doors are locked. We need this truck.” Nick half smiled and I know the pressure of the move had subsided.
I followed him to the driver’s side door of the truck. Nick turned to look at me.
“What?” I asked confused by his look.
“Joe left the goddamn keys in the ignition with both windows rolled down.”
“Get the keys. I’ll roll the other window up.” I scurry around the front of the truck to the passenger side. I opened the door and proceeded to manually roll the window up. The mail truck was old. I looked across the seat at Nick who was rolling the driver’s side window up. I smiled at him. He didn’t smile back. His face froze in a frown. I was confused. I am confused. What?
“Ugggggggggggggggggh!” The pain! The burning fucking pain! I’ve been bit! There is a deadie’s rotten teeth embedded in my shoulder. “Ahhhhhhh!” I tried to grab the hair of the thing that chumped down on me. There was no hair to grab. I tried to pull it off of me. I clawed at it but it still had a hold of me. I sunk to the ground and flipped the deadie over me with superhuman strength I didn’t even know I had.
This motion dislodged the deadie from my shoulder. Its eyes looked up at me while its hand reached up at me. Through the milky haze that covered its eyes I recognized it. I recognized the deadie. He had the eyes of Ray, because he used to be Ray. I held onto its frail neck and frantically banged its head against the pavement over and over and over.
BLAM! Nick was standing over my shoulder with his Glock pointed at the deadie. He had shot it dead.
I rolled off my knees and plopped down on my butt. I could feel tears vibrating in my chest. Then, what I thought was tears were the sounds of someone wheezing, gasping for air. Shit it’s me. I’m wheezing. I can’t breathe. I can’t breathe. Oh my god! I’ve been bitten. I AM GOING TO DIE!
I could feel Nick’s presence behind me but I couldn’t see him. My arms were sprawled out to my sides and my legs were wide open with the dead Ray deadie in between them.
Nick came into view as he closed the passenger door of the mail truck. He put the Glock in his waistband. He grabbed the deadie by the arms and dragged it into some small bushes a few feet from the truck. He jogged back to the mail truck and closed the driver’s door. He came to stand right in front of me.
“Get up.” Nick extended his hand for me to take.
I could only look at his hand then at his face and then right back at his hand.
“Can you stand?” He asked and I wanted to answer but it was like he was speaking Urdu. I don’t know how to speak Urdu. “Baby girl please, please take my hand.” His eyes pleaded in a way I had never seen before.
I took his hand and he helped lift me to standing.
“Nick.” Finally I could speak.
“Quiet. Don’t say anything. I’m going to take you back to the shoe store.”
I shook my head yes. I followed Nick, back into Macy’s. He grabbed all three trash bags and we scurried through Macy’s. We walked passed H & M on our left and Panera Bread on our right. Just as we were ducking under the gate of Aldo’s I looked back and saw Joe looking at us out the glass walls of Panera Bread. I went straight to the back break room and shoe storage area.
I sat down behind a desk in a black leather office chair. Minutes passed, twenty-two exactly. I watched the clock on the desk. I heard voices coming from the shoe store, Nick and Joe. I moved my chair closer to the door.
“Yeah, she’s okay.”
“She looked a little green.” Joe added.
“Upset stomach. I hope she’s not pregnant.” Nick lied but was believable.
“Don’t say the P word out loud.” Joe joked.
“How’s the blonde girl.”
“She’s still out of it. Doc came over and took a look at her but she’s just dehydrated and who knows what else. We’re calling her Jane Doe.”
“Original.” Nick chuckled. I knew it took a lot out of him to be deceptive.
“I’m going to get some sleep so I can stay up all night. It seems safe here now but I’m going to be lookout tonight.”
“Good idea. I’ll probably be up tonight too.”
“Okay. Holler on the walkie if you need something.”
“Will do.” Nick ended the exchange. I heard the gate being pulled down.
I sat in the doorway of the room. I looked at my shoulder and it looked like a wild animal had bit me. There were defined human teeth marks on my shoulder. I covered the wound with my shirt and realized that it didn’t hurt anymore. Maybe it did hurt and I was in shock and that’s why I couldn’t feel the pain that should exist.
I looked down at the floor and when I looked up Nick was standing before me with piles of shoes as his backdrop. I watched his every move, back and forth, forth and back.
“Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” He shouted quietly. “Oh god no! Fuck!” Nick’s feet were on fire and he paced to put out the flames.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” I cried out to him. I didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know how to comfort him when I was the one that needed comfort.
“Damn it Jesse.” The anguish on his face bled through his voice. Nick fell down on one knee right in front of me. This would have looked like a marriage proposal if not for the dire dreadful finality of the situation and my doomed condition.
I’m going to die. I’m going to die. I am going to die. Maybe this is for the best. I’m tired of running. I’m tired of living in hell on earth. I’m not a quitter but in this I cannot fight. I cannot win. I have to surrender. I will meet my maker but I’m not sure I still believe in God. A god that would let this happen, this is not godly. This is tyrannical, satanical and just down right mean.
Now that I found love, I found death. Now that my world has become chaos I will maybe finally find peace.
The infection has caused a fever to set inside me. I’m burning from the inside out. I can literally feel my blood boiling. This is a hot flash that never flashes it’s a consistent burn.
My left hand trembled in my right hand. My palms were chilled and sweaty. Is it the fever of the infection or am I just having a balls to the wall panic attack?
Nick is right here on one k
nee staring into my face but I can’t seem to bring myself to give him eye contact. When I’m dead I will never hear him call me baby girl. I will never see his blue eyes with subtle specs of gray. I will never see his crooked half smile.
“Jesse, I don’t know how to help you. I’m sorry. I told you were safe with me. I failed. I’m sorry.” Nick grabbed my shivering hands and rubbed them against his warm lips.
When I finally worked up the nerve to look at him, he was holding back tears. Mr. Camaro, my savior, my Superman was crying for me.
“Jesse, I love you. What am I supposed to do?” Nick pulled my t-shirt down exposing my injured, bitten shoulder. “Fuck!” His eyes sagged.
Nick leapt to standing and before I could blink he was hovering over me looking down with his Glock pointed a few feet from my face. His hand was steady on the trigger.
My fear clogged my main arteries and in one breathe I had a massive heart attack and in the next breathe I had a magical triple bypass.
“Nick, you’re going to shoot me?” I mumbled through my fear. Nick wiped away a lone tear that sprinted down his cheek. “Nick.”
“Stand up.” He commanded.
I stood and pushed the chair away.
“Turn around!” He yelled through an unstable voice. I refused to turn around.
“Are you going to shoot me in the back of the head?” He didn’t answer. His eyes just darted around as he swatted away his tears like flies. “Nick.” I cried through my fright and nagging desperation.
“Jesse, turn, around!” This time his words were so forceful my knees almost buckled under the tenor.
Like a scared, frightened coward, I slowly turned around and landed with my back to him. This is unbelievable, a wicked reality where unicorns eat babies, fairy godmother’s have beards and deadies are everywhere. In this reality I am a deadie. Once more with feeling, One more time for the people in the nosebleed seats, I am a deadie.
I don’t want it to happen like this. I don’t want the man that I love to blow a hole in my skull. This thought causes me to hyperventilate. I look straight ahead and my tear filled eyes try to focus on the overflowing boxes of shoes strewn about the back office.
Deadies: Book 1, 2 & 3 Page 14