Our attention immediately turned to Barbara. She had slid down the support pole bolted in the middle of the bus and was now slumped forward. Her face was so pale in comparison to the pool of blood growing around her. She was bleeding out; the Undead had punctured her carotid artery in its haste to taste her flesh.
We knew that it wouldn’t be long before she was dead. And now her blood, her body was infected. One of our biggest fears had befallen us. We would again be charged with killing someone who we cared about. We knew it and Barbara knew it. She quickly told us that she was sorry and then ordered everyone but Bob to leave. She had clearly chosen him to put an end to what she was going to become.
She had nominated him to extend to her the final dignity that every living thing deserves. Death.
We knew the moment of her death. It was marked by the cry of soul shattering grief that exited the bus. The single shot of Bob’s firearm ended her reawakening.
Upon exiting the bus Bob looked at no one, only turning to head back out of town. We gathered our supplies and silently fell in behind him. Bystanders tried to engage us, screaming in their demand to know what was going on. We had no answers, only warnings.
Get out. They’re coming.
None of us spoke for quite some time, all of us lost in our thoughts of Barbara. The first to break the silence was Bob. All he said was this: She didn’t deserve that. And he began to tell us more about Barbara. Things that we hadn’t known until that moment.
Barbara had grown up really poor. Her family had next to nothing and lived from paycheck to paycheck. Her father barely had work most of the time. Nothing was ever full-time but he was willing to work almost around the clock to make sure that Barbara and her sisters had food to eat and a roof to cover their heads at night.
In school, she was never popular. She had a few friends but they were constantly playing at being mean little girls so she separated herself from them as much as possible without becoming a complete loner. Being a loner would have served her just fine, however. She knew that she wanted to get out of the small northern town and she was willing to study harder than everyone else to get there; and get there she did. Full scholarship to the University of Toronto.
Life in the big city was quite a shock to Barbara. She was a shy country girl from up north. Her town didn’t have the multicultural aspect that makes up so much of Canada now. She was lost and alone, but quickly made friends with the boy that lived across the hall from her; Bob. Soon they would start dating and become inseparable. They would study together, even though they were in different programs and around the campus, they became known as the power couple; both of them winning awards in their respective fields of study.
They were perfectly matched. The both had a quick and intense intelligence and they made the cutest couple (or so everyone told them).
Then, in third year, Barbara got pregnant. And it was the pregnancy that tore them apart. Bob was in favor of keeping the baby and Barbara against it. Not because she didn’t want children but because she knew that having the baby could have put a hold on her dreams of achievement. It was a slightly selfish reason, but she wanted to have it all before she brought a child into the world.
Slowly but surely, though, Bob was beginning to bring her around to the idea of being a family together. But it wasn’t in the cards for them. The unthinkable happened and Barbara lost the baby.
Bob’s anger in that moment turned itself completely in her direction. He blamed her. As a result, they broke up and didn’t talk for quite some time. It was only in the year before Bob left for Afghanistan that he sought Barbara out to apologize to her. They quickly fell into their friendship again, but it didn’t amount to more than that despite Bob’s attempts to rekindle them. He had hurt Barbara so badly, that she couldn’t even think about allowing him that kind of access into her life again. So they remained friends while they both secretly desired more.
With Barbara gone, Bob seemed a little less whole. We’ve all experienced loss, some of us quite a bit in the past few days. All we could do was support him in his grief as he had supported us in ours. The truth is that no one deserves to become one of them.
Please do everything you can to avoid that fate. Those are my only words of advice for tonight.
The Treehouse
It walked with a sickening limp. The accompanying noise was akin to the grinding of teeth, only louder. Much louder. It was a sound that reverberated inside your head, warning you of its imminent appearance.
A voice snaked out of the darkness at me. “It’s comin’ this way!”
It was Billy. Stupid Billy.
“Shhhh! It’s gonna hear you!”
The response was barely above a whisper. Too quiet for poor Billy to hear and likely too intelligent for him to understand.
The grinding noise seemed to get closer. Out of the corner of my eye I could see it. Everything about it was frightening. The slack, waxen face. The left eye drooping out of the socket and laying half eaten on the discoloured flesh of its cheek. The gore pocked clothing relaying the message that it had eaten - recently. The worst sight was its left leg; the skin had been flayed off of most of the lower half and one of the bones was broken. The sound that we were hearing was the scraping of the ends together as it limped awkwardly in our direction.
We didn’t have the best hiding spot but sometimes you have to make do with what is around when you’re on the move. Technically we were just on the opposite side of a large planked fence, but the fence was broken. It looked like a herd of elephants came through a section just a few feet down from us, but we knew what really happened.
We saw it all go down. About 3 days ago, a group of survivors were fleeing an onslaught of Zombies on the road. With the corpses so thick in front of them, they changed directions and drove straight through the fence.
In any other situation, the action would have been cool to watch but the fence was the only thing keeping the Zombies out of the yard and away from the tree that supported our sanctuary.
As we watched from our vantage point, high above the verdant ground, we saw the truck come through one length only to lose the speed needed to go completely through the length on the opposite side. Instead, it got hung up on the broken fence beneath it and stopped short.
The driver panicked and in their haste to free the floundering truck, managed only to hopelessly tangle it among the hewn boards.
Panic is a funny thing; it can give you superhero capabilities or it can paralyze you. Like a sick game of Russian roulette, it chose paralysis this time.
We listened in horror as the Zombies flooded the backyard and surrounded the car, our minds making movies of what was occurring below us. Each whisper soft sound of their decaying limbs brushing the shiny blue exterior of the truck. The dull pounding of their grimy hands on the glass, almost rhythmic in its intensity. The sharp cracking of the glass as it spider-webbed out from the point of impact. Screams assaulted our ears as the Zombies pulled the occupants through their access point. Not daring to look down lest we give away our position, we were forced to watch the translation of those sounds behind clamped eyelids.
It didn’t take long but the memories of what we heard reverberate in our minds even now. Everything that we’ve seen and heard have melded together to produce the most horrific montages that play across the black expanse each time we close our eyes.
We knew we had to leave our makeshift home. With the hole in the fence, the backyard became a draw for them. We’ve waited until this moment to climb carefully down the lowered rope ladder, hoping not to attract attention to ourselves. I was the last to descend, cautiously feeling for each woven rung as I watched the scarred and lonely landscape around me, hoping I wouldn’t attract any attention.
Over my left shoulder I saw it. The solitary corpse had spotted me and was now limping in our general direction. It was slow but it moved with purpose. Our only hope was to confuse it by waiting until it was in the enclosed backyard before sneaking out be
hind it.
Fate wanted to play a different game with us today. Not only had it stacked the deck against us with Zombies, it had also given us Billy.
Stupid Billy.
As the broken leg of the Zombie came into view around the smashed edge of the planked span of fence, Billy screamed. High pitched and girly.
He froze, his mouth forming a perfect, round hole as the scream choked in his throat. A face appeared around the damaged edge, almost comical in its surprise and hunger. Its eye locked on Billy, the milky cornea searching for something; recognition perhaps.
With another scream, matched by a strident noise of victory from the Zombie, the dance of death resumed.
The rest of us took the moment of inattention to scale back up the rope ladder, knowing that at some point, we would need to escape. The time will come; we just need to be patient.
*****
Julianne Snow’s Bio:
It was while watching Romero's Night of the Living Dead at the tender age of 6 which solidified Julianne’s respect for the Undead. Since that day, she has been preparing herself for the (inevitable) Zombie Apocalypse. While classically trained in all of the ways to defend herself, she took up writing in order to process the desire she now covets; to bestow a second and final death upon the Undead. As the only girl growing up in a family with four children in the Canadian countryside, Julianne needed some form of escape. Her choice was the imaginations of others which only fostered the vibrancy of her own.
Days with the Undead: Book One is her first full-length book, the basis of which can be found in her popular web serial of the same name. Along with many zombie shorts published on her blog, she has a story in Women of the Living Dead as well as two zombie pieces; a standalone short and a collection releasing the summer of 2013. Julianne’s second novel in her Days with the Undead series will also be released in 2013. Stay tuned!
Social Media Links:
Twitter: @CdnZmbiRytr
Facebook: Julianne Snow
FB Fan Page: Days with the Undead
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/cdnzmbirytr/
Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/110149434437717424445/posts
Goodreads: Julianne Snow
Amazon Author Page: Julianne Snow
Blogs: Days with the Undead & The FlipSide of Julianne & The Randomness of Julianne
Days with the Undead: Book One
Synopsis:
It’s a journal of survival.
Five people set out to escape the Undead who have risen too close to home. Join the emotional and physical struggle as they began on the third day after the awakening of Brooks VanReit, as they are recorded from the point of view of Julie, a former pathologist and part-time survivalist.
Each entry is geared toward helping those who want to help themselves and maybe give a few that don’t a swift kick in the ass. Join our group of survivors on their journey through these Days with the Undead.
Links for Purchase:
Amazon: US, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Japan, Brazil
CreateSpace (Print)
Smashwords (Kindle, Kobo, Nook, Sony)
Barnes & Noble
Kobo
Apple
Rebecca Snow
A Mile in His Shoes
Del Weldon looked down into the hold and counted the bodies swaying in the flashlight beam. Twenty pairs of gray-green arms strained toward the light. Reaching to the floor, he grabbed the cold metal handle and pulled. A wheel shrieked as the steel trapdoor rolled on its runners. He shut the squad back into darkness. Removing a pen and a small black notebook from a breast pocket, he scribbled the tally and made a note to grease the caster. The smallest noise upset the squad sequestered beneath the uninsulated floor. They called for quiet as Del unhooked a leather harness from a storage locker and snapped it onto a loop dangling from the ceiling. Tomorrow, the count might be up to twenty-one. Or perhaps, it would still be twenty.
Stepping to the wall, he grabbed a crank and spun it clockwise. Empty straps lowered to the floor. Winding in the opposite direction, the loose yoke rose to its former position hovering in midair. The chain holding it swung without a jingle. Del made another notation in his book before taking a final glance around the room. Aside from his desk and the closed metal panel, the floor was clear. The monotony of the block wall was broken by a single sheet of safety rules and the locker. The few fixtures gleamed. Dust bunnies had been swept down onto the squad’s cell. He would bring the oil for the squeaky wheel in the morning. Switching off the lights, he left the room and closed the door.
“Evening, Tony,” Del said. He flashed an identification card at the guard behind the shatterproof glass. “Quiet night?”
“Usually is before we lose one,” Tony said as he pressed a button.
The lock clanked as it released. Del nodded then entered the corridor beyond. Behind him, the gate swished closed. Before him lay a hallway filled with doors leading to eight-foot by eight-foot rooms. A fluorescent light flickered at the end. Del made another notation in his book and walked halfway down the passage. Rubber soled shoes squished on the waxed floor tiles. He turned left to face a door marked with the number 313 in a thick layer of shiny black paint. Striding toward the small, eye level window, Del stared into the chamber. All the rooms were almost identical, the occupant being the sole difference. A lumpy cot stood on the left, a small receptacle for human waste on the right. In this particular compartment, a man in an orange jumpsuit reclined with an arm over his face. Lights out wasn’t for another four hours, so darkness had to be manufactured. Del rapped a knuckle on the tiny glass pane. The man craned his neck without dropping his arm.
“What now?” the man asked and lowered his head back to the mattress.
“Mister James, I need your meal request,” Del said, reaching for his small notebook.
“I’m not hungry,” the man said. “And what does it matter? I’ll be dead before it digests.”
“It’s protocol.” Del waited, pen poised above the unspoiled sheet of paper.
“Screw protocol. I’m not hungry.”
A large, silver-toned clock ticked on the wall as the second hand measured lost moments. Del shifted his weight to his left foot. The light at the end of the hall brightened before flickering again.
“If you don’t tell me what you want, I’ll be forced to guess.” Del tapped the glass again. “I don’t think you want the last food you see to be my wife’s faux meatloaf.”
The man groaned and rolled toward the wall.
“Might I suggest a breakfast food?” Del asked.
The man sat up.
“Don’t bring me anything. I don’t want a last cigarette, I don’t want last rights, and I don’t want a last meal. I don’t want anything but to be let of this cage. But no, that’s out of the question because I was the only one they could blame.”
“Excuse me, sir,” Del said in a voice he used to calm his wife’s nightmares. “You had your day in court, and you were sentenced. There’s nothing I can do for you other than bring you your last meal.”
“Day in court, my ass.” The man stepped to the little window and slammed his fists on either side of it. “It was a bunch of clowns at a circus.” Spittle flew from his mouth and dotted the glass.
“Would you like me to summon your lawyer?” Del asked, retreating from the man’s rage.
Mr. James spun on his heel and threw his arms in the air before dropping onto the cot.
“No, she was useless.” He let out a sigh. “And can you at least call me Patrick? Not even a day left, and I’d like to remember I had a name.”
Del glanced toward the guard station before looking back into the tiny cell.
“Certainly, Patrick. Now, will you please tell me what you want for breakfast?”
***
Del planned to leave as soon as he’d left the meal request with the facility chef, but found himself walking back to the office instead. Patrick’s words tugged at his mind. The key tur
ned the tumblers. He let himself into the extermination room and cushioned the door against his hand to shut it. Tiptoeing across the floor to keep the squad undisturbed, he flipped through a stack of files resting in a wire basket on the desk. Del dragged the one marked “Patrick James” open on top of the blotter. The pock-marked, wooden chair wobbled as he lowered himself into it.
The procured pages described Patrick James as having been a decorated soldier during the original outbreak. His bravery and quick thinking had saved scores of men and women from becoming shamblers themselves. What was left of Kingston had been renamed the Jamestown Sector in his honor. But as with some valorous heroes, the information portrayed his family life as having been anything but glorious. According to his file, he had killed his wife and three daughters after taking them prisoner and barricading himself inside their home. Del was surprised that the media hadn’t swarmed the scene. Reading the file was the first he had heard of the story.
Closing the folder, Del pushed himself back from his desk. Chair legs scraped across the flecked industrial tiles. He could hear the moans through the trapdoor. He sighed knowing the squad wouldn’t relax for hours, but he had to get home. Locking the door, he set off toward the transit station.
***
“Don’t they always say they’re innocent?” Del’s wife asked. She lifted a wooden spoon to her lips and blew on the end to cool its contents before sipping the sauce. “Perfect. Dinner will be ready in about five minutes.”
She turned off the stove and removed the pan from the element.
“Yeah, they all say they didn’t do anything wrong.” Del smiled. “It’s always not what it seemed, or they were framed. The best one I’ve heard was some guy said his dog made him kill his neighbors. That guy would have been committed before the outbreak. Now, he’s making himself useful.”
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