Darlings of Decay

by Chrissy Peebles

  Chapter Thirteen

  When I finally stopped screaming my head off, I took a deep breath and assessed the situation. Two zombies were feeling around the outside of my truck, trying desperately to get to me. They were hideous and hungry; they were also out there and I was still somewhat safe in my truck.

  “Scat! Go away!” I hollered, raising my gun.

  One of them, an obese zombie wearing pajamas, cocked his head, staring at me like I was some kind of delectable appetizer. Blood coagulated from where his nose used to be and I shuddered in revulsion.

  The other zombie was frothing at the mouth. She was a rail-thin, revolting creature who must have been taking a bath or something when she changed into a zombie. I could only presume this since she was stark naked, wearing only a plastic cap. This creature was growling and clawing frantically at my driver’s side window. She didn’t appear to be wounded, but she had the tell-tale zombie eyes, and her skin was gray and mottled.

  I knew my situation wasn’t good, so I decided to wait a few minutes, to see if the two zombies would lose interest and eventually wander off. But then the skinny female started beating on the window with her hands and I became paranoid about the window shattering. So I decided to try a different approach; I screamed at them, to see if they’d get confused and possibly leave me alone. It was a shot in the dark…that totally missed.

  Both zombies froze and stared at me as I screamed with all my might. I thought I was doing good and kept screaming until the female let out a high-pitched screech that made my cries sound like whispers. Then, in horror, I realized her screech caught the attention of other zombies in the area who were now coming to join the party.

  Cursing, I moved to the passenger side of my truck and opened the door.

  The male zombie began slobbering on himself as he staggered around the truck towards me. I aimed my trembling right hand and shot him in the head. Rancid zombie brains colored the pavement.

  “Oh, God,” I shuddered, resisting the urge to vomit. I looked towards the female, who was also moving towards me. “Listen, you’re next if you come any further,” I warned her.

  She snarled and then leaped at me, but not before I shot her between the eyes.

  Sensing the other zombies in the neighborhood getting closer, I grabbed the flashlight from my glove compartment and rushed towards the front door. Unfortunately, it was locked.

  Ring the doorbell? It was certainly worth a shot. I figured a zombie wouldn’t have enough sense to open the door, let alone unlock it. Plus, if one of the girls were still alive, she’d open it for me.

  A hairy chested, boxer short sporting grandpa zombie growled at me from the edge of the lawn and I knew I couldn’t wait any longer. I ran to the side of the house and tried the tall wooden gate. Luckily it was unlocked. I entered the backyard and did a quick scan of the swimming pool, using my flashlight. There was no sign of blood, just wet towels, snacks, and a couple of floating chairs still drifting in the water. I decided to check out the house and went through the open patio door to the kitchen, where I found a cast-iron frying pan lying on the ground and a few missing knives from the butcher block. Then, I caught something dark and red splattered on the marbled kitchen island. As I moved closer to the stain with my flashlight, I let out a shaky sigh of relief; pizza sauce.

  Wiping the perspiration from my forehead, I decided to move on. Their house is massive, over ten thousand square feet, and I knew I had a lot of ground to cover, so I started with the obvious: Kylie’s bedroom. Right away, I found Allie’s pink leather purse and overnight bag sitting on a futon, but no other signs of either girl.

  Next, I made my way to Paige’s room, which she likes to call her “wing.” She has her own bathroom with a whirlpool tub, walk-in closet, and even her own personal reading room. By chance I found her new iPhone sticking out from under the bed, as if she’d carelessly dropped it. I put it in my pocket and continued searching the entire house with the flashlight. After I scoured every room in the house, including the theater room and upper level where Kristie and Dan slept, my eyes began to fill with frustrated tears; the place appeared deserted and I had no idea what to do next. As I trudged back downstairs to the kitchen, my phone began to vibrate. I cringed when I saw who it was.

  “Thank God! What in the hell were you thinking, girl?” yelled Sara.

  I cleared my throat. “Look, I have to find my sister, she needs me. If it was your sister, you’d do the same. You know I’m right.”

  She was silent for a minute then sighed. “Yes, you are. So… have you found her yet?”

  “No,” I replied sadly.

  “Maybe they’ve all escaped?”

  “God, I can only hope so. Listen, have you heard anything at all from my mom, dad, or Bryce?” I asked.

  Another pause, then, “No, Cassie, I’m sorry.”

  I closed my eyes and let out a shaky breath. “Okay, well look, I’m going to keep searching. Call me if you hear from anyone in my family. Bye.” I hung up before she could start in on me again about returning home.

  I put my head in my hands and tried thinking about where Allie and the others could have possibly went. I felt like I was missing something and it was driving me crazy. Then it hit me like a sledgehammer, the new safe-room! It was a family shelter that wasn’t supposed to be finished for a couple of months, but it would still be a good place to hide. Paige had mentioned that it was in the wine cellar, so I ran back downstairs to the lower level and began looking. It was supposed to be hidden at the very back of the wine cabinets.

  “Yes,” I squealed when I located the entrance, it looked like an ordinary panel wall with a keypad attached. As I raised my hand to pound on the wall, it opened.

  Chapter Fourteen

  “Thank God!” I cried, standing face to face with my best friend. Although it was obvious that Paige was relieved to see me, the haunted expression in her eyes spoke volumes. She collapsed into my arms and sobbed.

  “Paige, where’s Allie?” I asked, trying to look beyond her into the safe-room. Unfortunately, she appeared to be alone.

  She shook her head as the tears streamed down her face. “I…I don’t know!” she cried.

  I wanted to shake her but instead forced myself to remain calm; we’d all been through our own kind of hell the last few hours. “What do you mean?” I asked slowly.

  “I don’t know! Allie and Kylie ran away. They were going to try and get help,” she cried through her tears. “I don’t even know where my mom is!”

  “Okay, calm down and start from the beginning. What happened?”

  Her light green eyes grew large. “It was my stepdad, Dan. He turned into some kind of freak! He tried to fucking bite me. Then my mom…she whacked him with a frying pan. But he…he kept coming towards me with these…horrible red eyes. Mom told me to run, so I did! I ran away and have been hiding here ever since. God, I’m so scared!” she sobbed.

  “Paige, I didn’t see anyone else in the house.”

  “Well, where’s my mom? She just wouldn’t leave me. They’ve just got to be here somewhere!”

  “Paige, it’s okay. We’ll find them, somehow,” I replied softly. “Listen, do you have anything to drink? I could really use some caffeine.” I’d been up for almost twenty-four hours and was finally feeling the effects.

  She pulled me inside. The hidden room was larger than my entire bedroom. It held a black leather sectional, an arsenal of electronic equipment, and a fully-stocked refrigerator. I grabbed a soda and walked over to the surveillance cameras.

  “Do these things work?” I asked.

  “No, I’ve already tried. They hadn’t finished installing them yet.

  I sighed. “At least you’ve got the generator, and didn’t have to sit in the dark.”

  She nodded and then stared vacantly. “What should we do?”

  “Do you have any weapons?” I asked.

  “What…what do you mean?”

  I pulled out the Beretta I had tucked behind my bac
k. “I lost my sectional staff when I was searching your house, but I still have this. You’re going to need something to defend yourself, too, just in case.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “From…Dan?”

  Crap. She didn’t know about the zombies.

  ~~~

  “Paige?” I’d just recounted my last few hours to her. The expression on her face was unreadable. “Are you okay?”

  “You’ve got to be kidding,” she finally said. “That’s just plain nuts.”

  “Believe me, I wish I was. Do you really think I’d make something like that up?”

  Paige shook her head but I could tell she was still having major doubts. It was crazy for me to imagine and I’d lived through it.

  I shrugged. “Well, you’ll find out soon enough. Do you have a baseball bat or something you can hit zombies with?”

  She looked at me like I’d lost my mind.

  “In my room,” she muttered.

  We grabbed a second flashlight and hurried to Paige’s bedroom. She took out a metal baseball bat and two softball helmets, one pink and one black.

  “Great idea!” I said, putting on the black helmet. “Okay, now stay close to me. I haven’t seen any zombies in your house but there’s a ton of walking dead on the streets.”

  She put on the pink helmet and I handed her the bat.

  “Wow, I love your nails,” she said suddenly, grabbing my left hand.

  I looked down. “Yeah, they look really sexy when I’m shooting at a zombie,” I replied dryly.

  Her jaw dropped. “Oh, my God…you really had to use the gun?”

  My cell phone started to ring. It was Sara again.

  I sighed. “Hi, Sara.”

  “It’s Bryce. Where are you at?” he demanded.

  I was racked with so many emotions that my knees gave out. I sank to the ground. “Oh, thank God!” I gasped. “I…I didn’t know what happened to you.”

  “I’m fine,” he replied sternly. “Stay where you are and I’ll come get you. Are you still at Paige’s?”

  Before I had a chance to respond, Paige gasped in horror and backed into me.

  “What?” I turned and dropped the phone.

  Two zombies stood at the entrance of her bedroom. The smell emitting from them rose like a wave of rotting garbage.

  “Holy crap,” said Paige in a strangled voice.

  The moon was shining through her bedroom window, giving us a pretty good view of the zombies. One of them, a skinny half-naked man with white curly hair, made an ugly gurgling noise and then curled its lower lip, as if smiling. There was blood dripping from his rotting face and he held what looked the remains of someone’s arm. He tossed it to the ground and staggered towards us.

  The next thing I knew, Paige let out some kind of ferocious battle cry, then lifted the metal bat and swung high, bashing the zombie smack in the middle of its skull. Before I could react, she raised it again, this time hitting a solid home run on the creature’s head. It dropped to the ground with a loud, sickening thud.

  The other zombie, a muscular bald guy with skull tattoos all over his head, growled at us.

  I raised my gun to shoot him, but the Berretta jammed. “For the love of God,” I mumbled trying repeatedly to shoot it.

  “Hold on!” Paige snapped as she tried to dislodge the bat from the other zombie.

  But skull-head just couldn’t wait; he staggered eagerly towards me, white froth foaming from his mouth. Fortunately for me he was terribly slow, with very little coordination. I stepped out of his line of attack and he fell to the ground. When he finally lifted himself back up, I jumped into the air and did a hard side kick; my foot catching him in the throat. He fell backward onto Paige’s jewelry box and that’s when all hell broke loose.

  Paige’s face turned red and she screamed in fury. “Get your ugly ass off of my grandmother’s jewelry box, you piece of dead rotting meat!!!” Then she kicked the zombie onto the floor and stomped the sharp heel of her new Jimmy Choo boot onto its face until it was just a bloody mass of gore.

  I stared at her in shock as she wiped the perspiration off of her forehead, then grabbed a towel and began cleaning off her boot.

  When I finally found my voice, I said, “So, I guess you believe me now?”

  She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. “You know, all I could think about when I saw them was that I wasn’t ready to die. Not by their hands.”

  I nodded. “I’ve felt the same way all night.”

  She looked at me. “So, who was on the phone?”

  “Bryce!” I groaned.

  I knew before I picked up my cell phone that he was gone. I hit redial and waited but nobody answered, it went straight to voicemail. I left a message.

  “Nothing?” asked Paige.

  “No,” I stood up and sighed. “Let’s go.” I picked up my gun and sure enough, chipped another nail.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Paige and I went over every inch of the house again, but couldn’t find signs of anyone. Not even Zombie Dan.

  “Did you check in the back by the pool?” she asked.

  I nodded. “That’s where I entered. The patio door was open.”

  “Let me guess, you didn’t close it after you entered and that’s how dead and deader found their way in?” she asked with a wry smile.

  “At least there were only two of them. You should have seen how many are prowling the streets outside.”

  Her smile faded. “Great.”

  We stepped cautiously through the kitchen and over to the sliding glass door. To our dismay we found the pool area climbing with zombies. There had to be a dozen walking aimlessly round the pool, some falling into the water and sinking to the bottom. Fortunately, none of them took any notice of us.

  I snorted. “This could almost be funny if it wasn’t really happening to us.”

  “Holy crap,” she mumbled. “I think I’m going to puke.”

  The smell of rotting skin was overwhelming. Resisting an urge to vomit myself, I slid the door closed and looked at Paige. “Wow, you didn’t invite me to your pool party. That hurts.”

  Paige groaned. “All jokes aside, we’re screwed.”

  “At least the sun’s starting to come out, they’re easier to see.”

  She shivered. “And how’s that supposed to make it better for us?”

  “Yeah, they aren’t pretty, especially the ones who’ve been dead for a while.”

  Paige’s eyes lit up. “Hey, did you ever check the cabana?”

  I shook my head. “No, I didn’t even think about checking that place, I just wanted to get inside the house.”

  “We’d better check it out, now. How do we get past those things?” she asked.

  “Maybe we can create some kind of distraction in the front of the yard to draw them away from the pool?”

  Just then we heard the faint sounds of gunshots. The zombies must have overheard as well, because they began moving idly towards the gate. When the last of them were no longer in sight, I nudged Paige.

  “Let’s go,” I said.

  I slid the glass door open and we stepped outside. The cabana was on the other side of the pool and we could hear more gunshots as we made our way to the entrance. Paige pulled open the door and we crept inside. It was empty.

  Paige took off her softball helmet and sat down. “I thought for sure…Oh, God…where in the hell are they?” she moaned, putting her head in her hands.

  I knew her pain. All I could think of about in that moment was my little sister. A memory flashed through my mind of when she was three or four years old, how she would follow me everywhere in her beat-up pink cowgirl boots, that were usually on the wrong feet, begging me to sleep in her room. I’d eventually relent, then grumble the entire night about having to watch her princess movies and the way she’d toss and turn as she slept, kicking me in the back. But right now, I would do anything to go back to that time.

  I released a breath and squeezed her shoulder. “Let’s go
and find out where that gunfire was coming from.”

  Paige nodded, brushing away the tears from her face.

  We opened the cabana door and stared in horror; the zombies were back and they brought dates. We were trapped and surrounded.

  “Okay, now what?” she whispered.

  Just as I opened my mouth, I saw a figure stepping through the sliding glass door. My heart leaped with joy when I recognized the loveable scowling face. Bryce! He’d actually come for me!

  “It’s Bryce!” I shouted.

  The shuffling and groaning of the zombies ceased; you couldn’t hear a bone drop. Everyone, including the zombies, turned towards us.

  “Nice going,” said Paige dryly.

  Bryce lifted his automatic rifle. “Get down!” he demanded.

  Paige and I crouched down as he began shooting at the zombies. I pulled out my gun and aimed at the ones nearest to us. Blood, mucous, and body parts were flying everywhere as we watched all of the carnage in a twisted kind of glory. The dead got deader and we lived another hour in this hideous nightmare.

  Paige shuddered. “Okay, this is totally disgusting.”

  “I can’t believe he’s actually here,” I said, reloading the Beretta. The butterflies were going crazy in my stomach again. I didn’t even care that I broke a third nail. I flicked it aside and decided the rest would come off immediately when I got home.

  “Only you would fall in love during a zombie massacre,” said Paige.

  I shook my head. “I’m not in love with him. I hardly even know him.”

  “Face it! You’ve definitely got a thing for him.”

  I took off the softball helmet. “He’s cute, sure, but he’s also a little annoying.”

  She shrugged. “He’s a guy.”

  When the last of the zombies lay twisted and broken on the ground, Bryce jogged over to us. He was still wearing what he’d had on the last time I’d seen him, but it was now covered with blood and gore. Part of me wanted Bryce to sweep me up into his arms and carry me to safety, while another part wanted him to burn the disgusting shirt first.