Deadies: Book 1, 2 & 3

by Krystell Lake

  I gasp for air. I wheeze as the barrel of the Glock taps the back of my scalp.

  “Jesse, I’m sorry. I love you.” Nick whimpers. He pushes the Glock harder into my now damp mane and my hair follicles separate and tremble under the pressure.

  I close my eyes and …

  ~DARKNESS FALLS~

  CHAPTER 15

  NICK

  I wish we had never left the post office. I shouldn’t have let Doc bully me into coming here. We haven’t even been here twenty-four hours and already someone is infected. Who am I kidding, Jesse is not just someone. She is the woman I love. I replay the events over and over in my head and I can’t sit still. The rage, my rage has overwhelmed me and taken over my rationale.

  “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I shouted. “Oh god no!” Why is this happening? Stop walking around like a madman. I got to figure this out. Moving helps me think. I have to fix this. I have to fix her. Looking at Jesse is too difficult. I’ll just pace around and come up with a plan. What plan? I can’t reverse time so…

  “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” Jesse pleads. Her voice rocks me out of my trance.

  Why is she sorry? It’s my fault. I should have protected her. That was my job. I failed. This is the third person to be infected on my watch. But this time it’s different. I didn’t feel the same way about Ray and Joan. It’s not at all like how I feel about Jesse. I’m in love with her. I hope she knows it. I can’t show her how I feel. My anger has pushed me to a point I never wanted to visit. Why Jesse? Why is this happening to us?

  “Damn it Jesse.” I huffed. Shit, I don’t know what to do. I can hardly stand on my own two feet. I need to think. I feel my legs weaken. I can no longer stand. The weight of this moment has forced me down on one knee. I want to pray the way my mother taught me when I was a boy but it’s too late.

  Now I can see Jesse, look her in the eyes, those jade diamonds that burn into me and melt my heart. I have to remember her as a human because soon she will be a mindless flesh-eating freak. I love this girl in ways I didn’t believe possible and now I am totally screwed. She is going to die and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it. She is not a Camaro. I can’t fix her. I can’t rebuild her engine. I can’t put rooters and brake pads on this situation. This is it. This is the end.

  All I can do is watch as sweat pours down her face. She is hot, feverish. It is this stupid zombie infection consuming her but why would it happen so quickly? She was only bitten moments ago. I give up. The reality, the finality, has turned my brain to mush.

  I look into her green eyes, they are open but she refuses to look at me. She hates me because I promised to keep her safe. Soon these beautiful emerald eyes will be replaced with white ashy clouds. I don’t know what words to use to comfort her when I myself need comfort. I have failed her and I can’t even think straight. This is the worst day of my life. My mother’s ovarian cancer was terrible but at least we all knew it was coming. We were prepared. My mother battled cancer for two years and loss. This is different. This is ten times worse. I don’t know what to say to Jesse. I don’t want to think about it. I’ll just speak from the deepest place inside me.

  “Jesse, I don’t know how to help you. I’m sorry. I told you were safe with me. I failed. I’m sorry.” I grabbed her hands and held her long thin fingers. I wanted to touch her again before she turned into a monster. Her delicate hands trembled in mine. I placed her fingertips to my lips. This made her look down at me from the chair. Her eyes peering at mine, this is too much to take in. I couldn’t control my tears. I am supposed to be a leader, the quarterback, the Indian chief. I am no leader. I am an imposter.

  “Jesse, I love you. What am I supposed to do?” I pleaded as I pulled down her t-shirt sleeve fully exposing her deep bite mark. There’s no turning this around. I know what I have to do. “Fuck!” I have to shoot Jesse. I have to kill her.

  I quickly stood. I was completely alarmed by my own thoughts. There was fear in her eyes and my reaction to the fear was to remove my Glock and point it at her face. This morose action scared her even more than the zombies. I felt like shit because I am shit but I have to handle this.

  If I shoot her the pain will stop for me and her. That doesn’t make sense. I can’t kill her. I love her. I can’t do this. She hates me now. I can see it in her eyes. This is a test, some moral conundrum. Life has conquered and defeated me. I am humbled just as I am weak.

  “Nick, you’re going to shot me?” Jesse mumbled and my heart crumbled into a million pieces. She was afraid and she had every right to be. I had a gun to her face. Doesn’t she understand that I too am afraid? I was trying to be a man but the tears wouldn’t stop pooling in my eyes. I batted one away and tried to hold the others under my lower lids.

  “Nick.” She called out to me like a sweet harmless girl, my baby girl. She is not harmless. She is deadly. Soon she will be a freak. If I break down, I won’t be able to do what I need to do. I never realized how much love hurts until this very moment. Is Doc stronger than me? He shot his ex-wife in the head.

  “Turn around!” I yelled to her. I could no longer look into those green eyes.

  “Are you going to shot me in the back of the head?” Jesse asked through tears I didn’t want to witness.

  I couldn’t answer her question because I wasn’t sure I could do it. I feel like a little girl standing here crying in front of her. I tried to wipe my tears away before Jesse could notice the waterfall.

  “Nick.” Jesse’s voice was shaky for good reason but it really hurt to hear her say my name.

  Man up Nick. “Jesse, turn, around!” I shouted again. I can’t look her in the eyes when I do it. If I see her fear before I pull the trigger I may just point this gun at myself.

  I am a coward, I’m not sure I can do this. Finally, Jesse turns her back to me and I don’t have to see her fear, her desperation, her blatant disgust for me.

  If I had been just a little bit faster, a little bit quicker. Why did I ask her to come with me to the mail truck? I killed her with my request. I murdered her with my selfish stupidity.

  Why did I let Ray turn into a freak? I should have shot him in the head. I can barely breathe. My Glock feels like a one hundred pound dumbbell in my hand. My hand is wet with sweat. I can barely keep my finger on the trigger.

  “Jesse, I’m sorry. I love you.” I say the words because they are true. She doesn’t respond. Even if she did I’m not sure I could hear her over the sound of my rapidly beating heart.

  I drop the gun to my side and instantly raise it again. I lower it and wipe the mixture of tears and sweat that have settled on my face and neck.

  I have to do this. I can’t watch her turn into one of those things. You can do it Nick. I tell myself words that I don’t believe myself. I raise my Glock that is no longer lucky. I take one step forward and tap the back of Jesse’s head with the nose of the Glock.

  I close my eyes and press my lips together tightly. I’m trying to hold in the howl that is battling to burst from my lungs. The pressure cracks my lips open and the bawling howl escapes my mouth. I lower my Glock and wrap my arms around the woman I love.

  Jesse’s knees give way and I had to hold her up. Maybe she fainted. I can’t see her face. I want to hold onto her for as long as I can. Soon I will not be able to.

  “Nick.” She called out and I twirled her around to face me. I held on tight mashing her skin into mine. Smelling all her sweetness before it is rot. I couldn’t let her go. “Nick.” Jesse melted into my arms and she became a part of me, a part that would never die even when she does.

  “I love you Jesse.” I placed a kiss on her lips and I got sucked into the pleasure of the warm deep wetness of her tongue. I didn’t care if her saliva infected me. I would rather die than banish myself from the sensations that arrest me when she touches me. I have to have her one last time before the end. I swirled her over to the desk and lifted her on to the desktop never detaching my lips from hers.

  Then the rattle of the Aldo stor
e gate startles us. Some asshole is banging the store gate making it clink and clatter.

  “Nick!” Joe, the asshole in question yelled from the gate.

  “Shit! I’ll be right back.” I whispered but I was sure Joe couldn’t hear me.

  “Are you going to tell him?”

  “No, don’t worry.” There was no way I was going to tell Joe that Jesse was bit by a freak. I hadn’t even come to terms with this reality myself so there was no way I would share this awful news.

  I rushed from the little office and went into the shoe store. Joe was standing at the gate with a cigarette dangling from his lips. I raised the gate just enough for me to duck under it.

  “Hey what’s up?” I tried to sound calm under these fucked up circumstances.

  “I think we should do a little exploring before we turn in for the night. You up for it?”

  “Well I was kind of in the middle of something.” I half-heartedly hinted.

  “What?” He asked, apparently I hadn’t hinted well enough. I raised one eyebrow. “Oh you were in the middle of Vicki’s legs.”

  When was he going to stop calling Jesse, Vicki? I had a foul mouth but Joe’s was unparalleled. He was genuinely Tarzan. Sometimes I thought he was raised by apes. I could turn my cave man off and he just couldn’t. This is precisely why his brief encounter with Michelle was brief. I’m cool with his character like most men would be but I can see how women would perceive him as obnoxious and vulgar. He is a diehard hoo-hah jarhead, ignorant, arrogant and pestilent.

  “I’m preoccupied at the moment.” That was no lie.

  “Tomorrow then. You don’t waste any time. Handle your business.” Joe flashed his goofy grin, the grin of the criminally insane.

  I forced a faint smile and walked as he jogged away from my new home, the women’s shoe store. I ducked underneath the gate and lowered it all the way down to the ground. I made my way back to the shoe storage area and into the back office.

  Jesse was standing near the door. She took a few steps back when I entered. She had been listening at the door. I could tell by the relief on her face.

  “So what’s the next step?” I tried to sound relaxed.

  “I know I’m going to die. I want you to wait for me to turn. Once I’m brain dead I won’t even realize that you’re the one that took my life. I don’t want to know. I want to just live as long as I have left.”

  “I want that too but you’re a danger to everyone else. You can’t leave my sight. We have to just stay here together until …”

  “Until I turn.” She finished what I just refused to say once again. I was getting tired. I could only assume it was getting dark. There were no windows in the store and the store wasn’t close enough to the mall entrance for me to look outdoors and see the outside world.

  I longed to shut my eyes and blink away this horrible day but I couldn’t. I had to watch Jesse. I had to make sure no one else was infected. My girl would be a zombie soon. Zombie, a word I never use. Using it makes this real, this can’t be real. I mean if zombies are real than what other things are lurking out in the shadows. The last two months of my life are a John Carpenter movie. There is not one single word to sum up where I’ve been, what I’ve seen, what I’ve done and what hell I’ve been through.

  I dragged two cushioned chairs from the showroom of the shoe store and pulled them back to the small store office. I placed a chair for Jesse on the furthest wall from the door and I placed my chair on the opposite wall. Right here I had a direct view of my girl, my baby girl that would soon morph into a freak.

  We both just sat and stared at each other from across the room. There was a distance that formed between us in the two or more hours that this soundless scrutiny took place. The quiet was the great wall I was building to block my heart from further damage. I was drained, weary and angry for so many reasons. The silence didn’t comfort me the way I hoped. It only prolonged her unavoidable death and my unavoidable agony.

  I rubbed my fingers over my tattoo, the tat on my left forearm that read non timetis messor. Latin for, don’t fear the reaper. I raked my fingers over the hooded skeleton with the scythe that lay underneath the words. I clawed at my painted on reaper with the fingernails I no longer had because I had bitten them off. I wanted to scratch away the reaper. I wanted him dead. I wanted him silenced. I wanted him six feet under. Honestly I just wanted my baby girl back.

  My self-pity and silent introspection was interrupted but her melodic voice.

  “Nick you can’t just sit there and watch me twenty-four seven. You’re tired. You have to sleep.” She was right. I was tired but I’m sure she was too. They always sleep before they change or did they die?

  “I have to watch you. I can’t let anyone else get hurt.”

  “I understand but you’re exhausted. I can see it in your eyes.” Jesse eyes froze on my non timetis messor tat and I immediately stopped picking at it.

  “Jesse, what am I supposed to do?”

  “I don’t know.” She shrugged. “Why don’t you tie me up so you can get some rest?”

  “Tie you up?” I repeated her absurd suggestion.

  “Yes, tie me up. It would make you feel safer and it would make me feel safer.”

  That was the truth but tie her up like an animal when she was still herself. The idea was making me feel uneasy. She was still Jesse and not a freak just yet.

  “Nick, I’m okay with it. Just find something to tie me up so you can get some rest.”

  Her words were more of a demand instead of a suggestion. “Okay, whatever.” I staggered from my chair. My body was sore from sitting in the same position for so long.

  I left the room and paced the showroom of the shoe store. Where the hell was I going to find rope to tie Jesse up? I went behind the register and opened the top drawer underneath the counter. I rambled through the drawer and found a pair of scissors amongst the junk that littered the cluttered drawer. I grabbed the scissors and decided to search for an extension cord or some form of wire I could cut into some kind of restraints. The cash register had to be plugged into something. I checked under the cashiers counter and unplugged the cash register. The cord was long enough for both of Jesse’s arms. I stopped to think about what I was doing and then I cut the outlet plug from the tip of the cord and then I cut the top of the cord from the base of the cash register.

  I took the twine into the office where Jesse was waiting for me.

  “You found something.”

  “The cash register cord.”

  “Okay.” She said and her attitude made this demeaning act feel slightly better for me. “Tie my wrists to the chair.”

  I took the necessary steps needed to end up in front of her. I looked down at her as she sat there willingly. Her bravery at a time when courage was under fire, made me proud. It also made me feel like shit.

  Just as Jesse said, I needed some shut eye. I fall into a restless sleep and when I woke it was around two in the morning. I craved a smoke but I hadn’t had one in two months. Besides, I didn’t have any cigarettes. I was sure Joe had some smokes but I wouldn’t bother him this late although I was sure he was up. He operated on a minimal amount of sleep. I did too but his minimum exceeded mine.

  Jesse was asleep tied to the chair. His head was leaned against the wall in a very uncomfortable position but somehow she seemed to make it work. I hated to see her like this. But it was done. I had been cramped up in my chair for hours. I needed to stretch my legs.

  I grabbed my Glock from underneath my chair and tucked it into my waist band. I made my way to the shoe store showroom. I caught a glimpse of myself in a mirror. It was dark in the showroom but there was just enough light to see the displays of shoes. I looked out into the mall and there were dim night lights illuminating it. I guessed the mall lights were on a timer but I never heard them go out. Guess I wouldn’t have heard them anyway if they were silent and I was asleep at the time.

  I walked over to the gate and I saw Kait inside the gates of
the Sprint store straight across the way. She had her arms around Malik’s shoulders. I suspected this, them, but I try to stay out of most issues. She kissed Malik on the lips and I wish I hadn’t seen it. I thought of Kait as a child and if I had a kid I couldn’t imagine my kid tongue fighting with a grown man. I don’t know how old Malik is but he is definitely an adult.

  I watched as Malik raised his gate half way to let the reckless teen out into the mall. She bent under the gate. Malik took this opportunity to slap her on the ass. I heard her giggle as she skipped away without noticing me and I was glad she didn’t notice me. I have enough shit on my plate.

  Kait disappeared around the corner. When I heard the gates of H & M close, I raised my store’s gate and walked over to the Sprint store. Malik was standing there watching me approach but pretending to ignore me. He had a lit cigarette in his hand. I was probably wrong. It was probably weed. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was getting Kait high. He is a pothead. I never asked him where he got the pot. I had more pressing issues, like the freaks everywhere trying to kill us.

  Malik coolly stood at his partially raised gate, smoking. I stopped at his gate and just stood there on the other side.

  “So you’re having a guest this late at night?” I tried to sound nonchalant but I came off as cynical and slightly parental.

  “Late at night, early in the morning, you pick one.” Malik blew smoke through the holes in the gate. I was right, marijuana not a cigarette. Now I was really craving a smoke.

  “You think that’s wise?” I peered through the holes in the gate and waved away a cloud of smoke that wafted toward my eyes.

  “You come over here to lecture me?” He was getting defensive but he masked it with a mellow undercurrent.

  “No.” I had no lectures for a grown man.

  “So what? You mad ‘cause the black man banging yo’ little snow white?”