“As far as we know, he’s alive, yeah.”
“And we all know Coach won’t pass up this kinda opportunity to break out his toys.” Terry was following Marty’s line of reasoning. “He’s probably armed to the tits right now, ready to blow to pieces whatever walks through his front door.”
“Then we go find him since there’s a chance he’s still in the city…and hopefully still alive.”
“Not much of a chance…” Mac hated to be a downer, but he wanted to speak plainly and be honest about what they were dealing with. “Most people aren’t a threat to us, no matter how heavily loaded they are.” He felt like he just let all the air out of the room, so he added, “And for the record, I never ate anybody. By the time we crawled out of the ground, the whole city was already picked clean.” He directed his comment to Terry since he was the one who made that “people-eating” remark earlier. “Shit-Face sent all us Priests out to do his bidding before I ever got the chance to make a meal of anyone.”
“Thank god for that…” Bobby murmured. “I never thought I’d be so stoked J.C.’s such an asshole…”
“That must be why Donny couldn’t be…y’know…cleansed or whatever.” Jimmy was finally starting to make sense. They all took in the weight of his insight until Marty decided it was time to activate his squad of freshly recruited kick-assersists.
“Alright then… Let’s do this.”
“Wait a minute…” Tara still had at least two more cents to throw in, if not an entire dime. “I’m…” She wasn’t sure where to begin. “…I… I don’t know… I’m a lot of things right now… Exhausted, upset, terrified…angry…” She caught her voice shaking and her skin beginning to flush, so she took a breath before continuing and everyone listened closely.
“But one thing I’m not is dead yet.” She hoped that wasn’t too blunt. “I’m… I’m still alive…for the most part…and…” How should she put this? “…living people need to pee.” Everyone was slightly relieved she ended her rant on a lighter note. “Not to mention, put some food and water in our stomachs.” They all understood her point and were maybe even a bit sympathetic…but she wasn’t finished…
“And…and being this still living, breathing, person… I don’t know if it’s such a good idea that we go with you…” She almost felt guilty for saying it, but it needed to be said.
“Marty,” Jimmy thought he’d better get her back on this one. “I love you to death and beyond, dude, but she’s right… I do have to pee…and I’m tired…and…” He lowered his head. “…I don’t wanna be food for zombies…”
Marty heard his two friends loud and clear, but this time they were the ones who weren’t thinking things through. Fear and exhaustion could weigh heavily on a person’s decision making. He thought he’d better do what he could to enlighten them.
He walked over to Tara who’d found a seat on the couch. She tried to keep eye-contact at first but found she couldn’t look at him for long, his dirt-crusted dry skin too painful for her to see. When he stood over her and she looked away, he reached his hand out to gently brush the hair from over her eyes. She didn’t look back. She just focused on the huge hole in the wall that led outside, knowing that if she looked him in the eyes for too long, she might break down and cry.
Marty looked back up to his two friends who were still alive, then over to Desi standing off to the side by the hallway leading to Alex’s room.
“Like I said before; you all know why I’m here: to find Alex… But I don’t wanna see anything happen to any of you… Alive or otherwise…” He gave Bobby and Mac a glance. “Chances are, if the Priests who’re still demon puppets of this bitch Imala find my sister before me, they’re gonna take her back to the cemetery. And if that happens, I’m gonna need as many of our boys on my side as I can get. And the more Priests…or…hell, even Hounds I can turn, the stronger we’ll all be.”
“Strength in numbers.” Terry agreed with a nod. “That’s why I wanted to find you in the first place.” He’d almost forgotten. The fear and nonstop swell of anxiety had him on edge as much as the rest. He turned to Tara who been seated next to him to get her attention. “We’re safer stickin’ together.” She finally looked away from the hole in the wall that so accurately described her heart and met with Terry’s stare. He could see in her eyes he was getting through to her. “And I wouldn’t mind havin’ the Coach on our side, either,” he added.
She nodded softly, still just trying to keep her emotions in check. Everyone would probably agree she was doing a hell of a job.
“You can use the bathroom first.” Terry smiled. “I’ll try an’ hold Jimmy off for as long as I can.”
She feebly returned his smile and stood up. She knew if she didn’t make it to the bathroom soon, she wouldn’t be able to contain herself. She swiftly passed by Desi, being sure not to make eye-contact. If anyone could understand what she was going through it would be the only other woman around, and she didn’t feel comfortable showing this younger girl all her cards.
Just a few more feet and she’d have her privacy. No one could accuse her of being weak if they never knew how badly she was hurting inside. A broken heart and a splintered spirit wouldn’t be easy to slip past the people in the room, but she’d be damned if she wasn’t going to try.
The Bathroom Blues
Tara shut the door behind her and locked it. She’d been holding her breath through the short hallway that led to the bathroom while her pulse hammered against the sides of her skull.
She felt dizzy. Her vision narrowed. Her stomach was performing backflips while collapsing in on itself from a lack of anything in it to help hold its shape. She turned the water on in the sink. If there was one bit of good news left to the dreary reality that’d been forced upon her, it was that the tap was still spilling that precious H2O.
She locked-on to the despairing image of herself in the mirror to try to slow the spinning of her head.
It didn’t help.
She leaned over and splashed cold water in her face in hopes to snap out of her bombardment of cascading emotions.
Not a good idea.
The trickle of the water on her skin made her realize how thirsty she was and she instinctively put her mouth under the faucet to drink desperately and maybe a little too fast. Six or seven gulps later and she noticed she’d forgotten to breathe. She pulled her head from over the sink and gasped for a lungful of the stale bathroom air.
Her stomach churned.
She stood upright too quickly and discovered that Earth’s gravity had a personal grudge against the blood in her veins. The color drained from her face and she knew if she didn’t get closer to the ground soon, it would sneak right up on her and have its way.
She reached her hands out, fumbling to lift the toilet seat, and collapsed to her knees over the bowl. Her breaths were short and erratic. She felt like she couldn’t get enough oxygen to her lungs…or that maybe she was getting too much…
Her gut clinched.
The back of her tongue pushed open her throat with a gag, her head forcing itself past the sturdy porcelain brim that was keeping her from falling in. She gripped the sides for their cold support and closed her eyes…
Her last memories of being with Marty, lying next to him in bed, curled up on his chest, spilled into her mind, and the thought of that moment being gone forever coxed whatever fluids she had bubbling inside to climb their way out.
He was there – twenty feet away – in the room right next to her…but was gone forever…
Her stomach heaved a few more times but she had nothing left in it to offer. No food. No water. No strength… No hope…
It’d been a long time coming.
Sometimes a girl just needed to cry.
2
“Oo…oo…ooo…!” Jimmy sat down over the toilet and unleashed a hellacious bowel movement that could’ve put a wild
animal to shame. “Good god damn, that’s not a happy smell…” If it were any livelier, he may’ve had to waste a bullet on putting it out of its misery.
He’d made it clear to the rest that he was next in line for the shitter but did his best to be subtle about it when he had to give Tara “the boot”. He asked her if she was okay and she nodded and said she was. He then politely requested she vacate the premises before he made a horrible mess out of the both of them. “That’s gross, Jimmy…” was her reply to his fair warning, and she wisely stepped clear.
After the initial bracing for his fight against rapid, explosive forces, he eventually let his body relax with his elbows on his thighs and head in his palms. He’d always gotten “the shits” after moments of high anxiety and stress, but this one felt like he just donated a kidney.
After a few moments of quiet, he realized he was shamelessly prying on the commotion in the other room, wondering who would say what to who and how the rest were affected by what they’ve been through. He wondered if Terry was as torn up inside as he was that all their friends were walking, talking fertilizer. He wondered if Marty really gave a shit about any of them or if he was just basing his behavior solely on what was expected of him. He questioned if he really would have a better chance at making it through all this by sticking close to a man who would put him right in the middle of it. But then remembered that the other three friendly corpses they’d run into were specifically looking for leverage to use against his ex-captain, and his chubby ass would make for a pretty plump turkey of a hostage.
The fear of death was primary in a long list of scary shit that was going through his mind, but somehow, the second most pertinent thing fueling his woes was his thoughts of Alex. At least he had his friends alongside him – one of them being her badass brute of an older brother. But who did she have? She was out there alone somewhere, with a squad of rabid, zombie sports enthusiasts looking to pass her around like a piece of cold, hard rubber on the ice. He was over here safe in her home, comfortably befouling her toiletries while she was being ruthlessly hunted down by a team of hockey cannibals from Hell.
He wiped his hand hard over his face to wash away his emotions and conquered his self-control with a deep breath. He let the breath go with a certainty shaping inside. He would help Marty find his sister for as long as they all stood together. It was like Terry had said: there was strength in their numbers. He made a promise to himself right then that he wouldn’t prove to be the weakest shaft in their bag.
3
“Fuck, it stinks in here…” …like burnt rubber and barbeque sauce, he didn’t say.
Terry shook his head in front of the bathroom mirror to shake off the stench crawling up his nostrils and down his throat. To say the bathroom reeked after leaving a room full of half-dead jocks was saying a lot. But the odor was preferable to the mountain of worries avalanching into his head as soon as his bathroom break allowed him a moment alone to think.
The screaming ghosts of those who died horribly in the streets still hounded his thoughts, and the realization that it’d happened to so many others was more putrid than anything that could’ve come from the depths of Jimmy’s bowels. And that the same thing would probably happen to him was only half as bad as the thought of it happening to Tara or Jimmy…
He reached over and gathered a handful of liquid soap from the dispenser on Alex’s sink. Healthily lathering up his hands, arms, and face, he wasn’t shy about going back for a second and third squirt. He felt like he had other people’s blood all over him and gagged at the thought of how much he must’ve breathed in from the outside air.
Coughing and spitting, he forcefully cleared his throat then rinsed his hands and face, desperate to rid himself of the film over his flesh that he wasn’t even sure was really there. He coughed again and gagged while franticly looking around for a tube of toothpaste that he finally found inside the shower. He grabbed the tube, unscrewed the top, and strangled it at its middle until it spewed two inches of paste into his mouth. His fingers worked to scrub his teeth’s enamel, and he took in a mouthful of water to swish the paste around between his cheeks. When he finally spit, it splashed against the white sink revealing a haunting hue of pink.
He looked closely at the foam before spitting again, deciding if what he was seeing was real or just a trick of his tired eyes. The red-tinted dribble slowly drained into the pipes so he turned the water on to help it along (the sooner it was out of his sight the better). After another rinse, his saliva only reflected the minty freshness of Crest, and he still wasn’t sure if what he’d seen was real…
He looked into the mirror at his gums, thinking maybe he’d nicked them with his nails when he was scrubbing his teeth. But his reflection wasn’t in accord. Lifting and pulling at his lips, he found nothing but undisturbed flesh and bone.
Could he really have breathed in so much of that demonic air that his mouth and teeth were caked with the blood of the dead?
A swish and spit later, he found no trace of the troubling hue. He ran his tongue over his teeth with his lips closed and swallowed, grimacing at the taste of iron still lingering inside. The strangled tube of toothpaste still had some life left in it so he repeated the reaping, taking it for all it was worth. If he couldn’t get the flavor of death out of his mouth, then he’d just have to get used to it. No one ever said the end of the world would be an evening stroll in summer sands. If there were ever a time to man-up and tough it out, right about now would make for good practice. The taste of blood in the air was only the metaphoric “extra mayo” to his proverbial fish taco. Terry loathed fish tacos…but he’d learn to eat whatever the fuck he’d have to keep him and his friends alive.
He wiped his mouth then snatched a towel from the shelf above the toilet, scrubbing his face to uncover a false sense of cleanliness.
The idea that Marty was dead sat awkwardly on his mind – he couldn’t quite wrap his brain around it. He thought that if he and his like could survive this, then Marty was sure to still be alive. But it would seem fate had Marty’s number from the get…which, in a sense, could also mean that he was still alive for a reason too.
He wasn’t the most spiritual of men, especially compared to other professional athletes who were in a lot of ways superstitious, but now seemed like a good time to keep an open mind. If there was a greater plan at work here, it’d make him feel a whole hell of a lot better to know it considering how far they’d come. He and his friends could be three of a very small group of people who’ve managed to survive the transformation of the city of Los Angeles, and if that was any indication of how things were supposed to unfold then he’d graciously accept it as a good sign. He didn’t believe in destiny…or trapped spirits…or red-eyed zombies… But if two out of three of those were now a fact then how much of a stretch would it be to believe in a happy ending?
He gave himself a stern look in the mirror to settle his thoughts and focus his mind.
“Head in the game, man.” A little man-to-man pep talk between him and his reflection seemed like a healthy way to prepare for the journey ahead. “Stick close to the good guys, find the Coach, find Alex…” he took in a deep breath, picked his shotgun back up from where it laid tilted in the corner, cocked it and exhaled, “…and repeatedly shoot anything that looks at me like my ass is a ham sandwich.”
4
The young, undead Bobby Shye found himself tactfully retreating into the kitchen away from the discussion in the living room. He didn’t know why, but felt like he needed to put some distance between him and the others. Marty was doing his loner thing, staring out the hole in the wall and into the blood-mists that obscured the view outside. And Terry and Mac were running through plans of action and strategic scenarios that just seemed a little above Bobby’s paygrade. He’d never been much of a thinker. He was athletic, quick and agile, and good at following instructions, but when it came to strategy, he was definitely more of a T
ic-Tac-Toe guy than Sudoku.
He glanced around the room and noticed Desi sneaking peeks his way. He would’ve expected her to seem on edge around him – maybe just watchfully keeping out an eye – but something in her stare seemed more complex than he could put his finger on. Their eyes locked for what seemed like a little too long and he didn’t want to frighten her, (or maybe he was still somewhat frightened of himself…) so he turned his head to break the tension. A strange sensation chilled him to his bone when he was suddenly overwhelmed with the carnivorous thoughts that swam through his brain less than an hour before. Cravings for chaotic violence and human flesh hounded his memories like an echo of his own voice in a mausoleum…
He turned away from the living room entirely and instinctively went for the kitchen sink. He wasn’t thirsty or at all concerned with the dirt under his nails, but instead just going through the ritual motions he’d been accustomed to from living out life as a hygienically inept human being (the thought of not being able to consider himself human anymore an unsettling one…).
In need of a distraction, he turned the faucet on and put his muddied hands under the flow. It was a strange sensation. He couldn’t tell if the water was hot or cold, and when he rubbed his fingers together to inspect the texture of the liquid it just rolled off his digits like his body was unwilling to absorb the wet. Suddenly he was transfixed by the reaction of the liquid to his skin and watched it repel from his flesh as if it wanted no part in this façade of his at trying to appear alive… But then his attention was diverted by another of his senses which now seemed beyond that of mortal men.
Blood Magik- A Cold Day In Hell Page 46
