Night Zero- Second Day

by Rob Horner

  Johnny was terrifying because of what he’d become, but not because he wanted to be.

  Neither did he rush at her. If he had, she would’ve died.

  He turned into the room, saw her, and started forward. His gait was awkward; there was something wrong with one of his legs. Whoever or whatever had killed him might have gone for the leg first. She didn’t know and couldn’t tell.

  His second stride was firm.

  Two more and he’d have her.

  Sobbing, Jessica raised the Phantom and fired twice.

  The first shot missed, and a hole appeared in the drywall beside the doorway to the hall as if by magic.

  The second round struck Johnny in the forehead. He crumbled to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

  Jolted as much by the roar of sound as she was by what she’d done, Jessica barely managed to keep hold of the gun. Her arms drooped and her hands wanted to shake, but strangely her grip didn’t loosen, so the gun ended up hanging below her waist yet still held securely in both hands. Her heart trip-hammered, sending blood thudding behind her ears.

  Seeing Johnny drop stole something from her, as if in that one instant, her years with him and their nebulous plans for a future together vanished, sucking the air from her lungs and creating a gaping wound in her core. Breathing became difficult, like a trick she’d heard about but never tried. Her eyes burned, tears doubling her vision.

  Other sounds reached through the small home, noises from outside, but close enough to worry her.

  She couldn’t afford to lose it. She couldn’t break down here, trapped in a small bedroom, while God knew what-all went down outside. Johnny might have already been in the house, maybe in the second bedroom, but she didn’t think so. He’d probably come in behind her; maybe he’d even been waiting somewhere, watching for her return, though that thought scared her even more. If he was capable of such reason and planning, maybe he hadn’t been completely gone.

  Regardless, if he came in after her, the door was probably wide open, a ready invitation for more of the dead-not-dead fuckers.

  Still holding the gun in front of her, though thankfully the twitching in her hands had stopped, Jessica eased forward, angling her sneakers carefully to maneuver around Johnny’s body. Each sliding step came on an indrawn and held breath, as though any noise, even the sound of air moving through her mouth, might be enough to bring him back again, torn throat and bullet-holed forehead included.

  She didn’t take a full breath until she was past him, and then enough to gulp once or twice before holding it again, risking a quick peek out into the short hall, terrified there would be another walking corpse bearing down on her.

  The hallway was empty, but not silent.

  More sounds of carnage, louder now, chased each other through the small home—screams and ominous calls like the cough of a hunting cat and gunshots, racing engines and shrieking brakes. The subdivision was alive with sound as people awoke to deranged family members, or as uncaring zombies broke in windows, setting off burglar alarms and driving law-abiding homeowners to grab weapons and open fire. The noise was sobering, driving away her momentary weakness, pushing the looming grief aside, if only for the time being. Distressed and despairing, she was nevertheless galvanized to move, to get out, to get away.

  Losing Johnny hurt, but it wasn’t going to overwhelm her.

  Back down the short hall to the living space with its mismatched secondhand furniture, then to the front door, standing open to the night. Flashes of movement stuttered here and there in the brief bright pools cast by porch lights and headlights. Dogs barked in poorly syncopated tattoo, a dozen voices high and low calling out warning. Here and there a dog’s voice was silenced, going from growl to bark to scream of pain.

  Worse were the low forms running along the sidewalk, silent things on four legs chasing other animals or following fleeing packs of people.

  Having witnessed the birth of this nightmare in the hospital, Jessica had no idea if only humans were affected. It didn’t matter anyway. The only thing she needed to concentrate on was getting to the minivan.

  Her sidewalk wasn’t that long, the porch only a few feet deep. The silver Town & Country was parked at the curb, the driver’s door only twenty-or-so feet away. None of the movement she could see was on her side of the street.

  She braced herself in the doorway, right hand on the doorjamb, ready to use it as a speed booster, a lever to get her ass in gear.

  Something made her wait.

  Through the collective din of sounds, something clicked closer, like the light tap of a midnight paramour rapping on a maiden’s window. It came from the right, she was sure of it, possibly from around the side of the house.

  Hardly daring to breathe, Jessica eased the gun in front of her, relinquishing her hold on the doorframe to give stability to her grip.

  The sound didn’t repeat, and just as Jessica began to let her breath out, something dark separated itself from the shadows to the side and moved out onto the postage stamp front lawn.

  It was long and lean, a low form on four legs, bushy tail standing out behind it. Crossing the shadows on her lawn, she couldn’t make out the color, but the drooping ears and long snout put her in mind of Sandy, the neighbor’s golden retriever. The head didn’t turn this way or that, and the nose wasn’t lowered to the ground. If it was Sandy, she wasn’t hunting a scent. She moved forward, one paw after the other, like a dog that had no idea how a dog was supposed to act or what it was supposed to do. When it reached the edge of the street and crossed into the light from a streetlamp, Jessica held back a gasp.

  It was Sandy, but the rich golden fur was a nasty mess of dark cords and blackened clumps. The dog didn’t pause but continued into the street, just walking. Jessica waited until it reached the far side before easing onto the porch. Step by tentative step, wary of scraping a shoe or stepping on a twig, she slunk from house to curb.

  Twenty feet never seemed so far or took so long.

  When she reached the van, she paused, frozen by a scream which seemed to come from no more than three or four houses away.

  What the fuck am I doing, she thought wonderingly. Hastily, she jerked the van’s door open and climbed inside. She locked the doors before starting the engine.

  The sudden roar drew attention; the brightening of the headlights even more. Dark shapes resolved into the forms of people, her neighbors as well as strangers she’d never seen before. They stepped out from the sides of houses, or moved from lawns into the street, people in nightclothes, adults and kids alike. They sported wounds like a triage tent on a battlefield, limbs missing, torsos torn, but they moved with purpose, spinning to face the idling van.

  Jessica suppressed a shiver of terror, jerked the van into Drive, and peeled away from the curb, desperate to avoid any of the moving barriers, but more interested in getting away.

  God help any she couldn’t avoid.

  Chapter 13

  “Okay. Jacob, I want you to go out and get in the Ford. There’s someone else in the car. A nurse. She’s okay. She’s a friend.”

  “What are you going to do, Daddy?”

  What was he going to do?

  If Olivia was…one of those things…what could he do?

  “You said she spoke to you?” he asked.

  Jacob nodded. “Her voice sounded weird. But yeah…she talked to me.”

  Did that mean something?

  Buck strained through his memory of the night before. Had any of the others spoken? He didn’t think so. Nothing beyond screeches and screams and certainly nothing rising to the level of what Jacob described.

  Maybe Olivia wasn’t all the way gone or converted.

  He had to try, at least, to talk to her.

  “Just go on, son.”

  “Okay. But…be careful, Dad. I don’t think she’s really Mom anymore.”

  Buck had his hands in his pockets, though he didn’t remember putting them there. The hard bulk of the brass knuc
kles settled into the palm of his right hand. His fingers found their way through the elaborate metal loops.

  It wouldn’t come to that. It couldn’t.

  But just in case…

  * * * * *

  The house had a do-it-yourself alarm system—a bunch of magnetic sensors sticky-taped to the windows and doors and connected via Bluetooth to a central receiver. The receiver chirped whenever a magnetic bond was broken or reestablished, such as when Jacob ran outside.

  The tone set off the wall-banging, door-knocking thunder from the enclosed stairway. Even in her altered state, Olivia seemed to understand her prey was escaping.

  There were other sounds interspersed between the pounding of fists on drywall or wood, harsh gasps like breath exploding with each violent strike, a low tone as of the mournful sound of wind weaving between gravestones on a foggy night.

  Buck shivered, then forced his mind away from its morbid fancies.

  Either Olivia was all right, or she wasn’t. What he would do if she wasn’t…well…hadn’t he been preparing himself for that possibility since he got there? Would it make any difference if he turned and left the house? What Jacob said, what he’d described—there couldn’t be any hope for her. He couldn’t allow himself to think there was.

  Did he need to see?

  He didn’t want to.

  He had to.

  Anything less would have him forever wondering, doubting, worrying—maybe she’d be okay if he’d only looked in on her. Maybe she would’ve gotten better but she didn’t because he left her.

  He wasn’t sure he had the strength. But there wasn’t anyone else.

  Heaving a sigh and forcing himself to move with purpose, Buck stepped into the short hallway. A floorboard creaked underfoot, and the pounding stopped. The raspy breathing continued, though now it sounded like a dog with its snout pressed to the crack under a door, slow inhales followed by heavy, wet exhales as she strained for a scent.

  “Let me out, Buck.”

  The voice came from under the door, just like the snuffles. She was crouched down in the small space between the door and the bottom stair, face pressed to the floor. She had to be. It was Olivia’s voice, and yet it wasn’t. Deeper, raspier—like Olivia trying to talk through a bad cold but without the truncated ‘d’ sound at the end of every word.

  “I know it’s you,” she said. “The creak of the floor, the smell of you—” A prolonged inhale, like a gourmand savoring the scent of something fresh from the kitchen. “I don’t think you can become, but we should try.”

  Buck hesitated.

  He couldn’t have walked away just on Jacob’s description, but what about now? He could hear the change in her voice, couldn’t he? Would that be enough to assuage his guilt if he simply left her behind the locked door?

  What made her different? Why was she able to talk when none of the others could?

  His voice cracked when he tried to speak. Her words drew him into the hallway until he stopped outside the loft door. Buck flexed his hands in his pants pockets, reassuring himself the brass knuckles were still there.

  No. That was a lie.

  He gripped the knuckles like a lifeline to prevent reaching out and opening the door.

  “What happened, Liv?” His voice was soft and thick in his throat, like the words didn’t want to come out. A burning ache flared in his chest. It’d been there ever since Jacob rushed out of the house, like a pit of banked embers, but he’d ignored it. Now, it exploded, filling him, the pain of grief and anger at the loss of his wife, no less destructive with her on the other side of a door, still talking to him.

  “It’s an amazing thing, Buck. I was afraid, but now it’s all right. Everything is all right. Once you become, everything becomes all right.”

  “What do you mean, ‘become?’”

  “It’s what I am, what so many of us will be. I wanted to bring you with me. But Jacob couldn’t become.” The loud sniffing noise repeated. “I don’t think you can, either, and that’s too bad. There’s a whole new world waiting for us, for me, now that I’ve become.”

  “If you’ve…changed—”

  “Become.”

  “Yes. Become. If you’ve become, why are you able to talk to me?”

  “I don’t under… Wait. I’m beginning to understand. You have seen other become. Their smell is on you. You’ve met one who is more, also. Like me.”

  “None of them could talk to me,” Buck said.

  “One or two could have. They chose not to.”

  Hands still in his pockets, Buck backed away from the door. “How can you know that?”

  “I know of them the same way they know of me. We are connected. Shared thoughts. Shared minds. They know I am trapped here, and they are coming for—”

  Her voice faded.

  They are coming for her.

  Jacob! Caitlin!

  His wife might be gone. Probably was gone. Maybe there would be a way to fix her later.

  As much as it hurt, he couldn’t focus on her.

  They are coming.

  He had a son to protect. Someone who, like him, appeared to be immune to…what?

  Becoming?

  Buck removed his hands from his pockets, but it wasn’t to do something stupid like unlock the door to the loft.

  Spinning, he left the hallway and rushed for the front door, hands out to yank it open.

  “I’ll find you, Buck!” Olivia screamed from behind. “No matter where you run, I’ll find you!”

  Buck shook his head, a chill of fear covering his arms with gooseflesh. It wasn’t just the words. It was the tone. There was no love there, no desperate sense of needing to be with him. There was no call not to take her son away.

  There was no time to worry about it.

  Dark forms rushed back and forth across the residential street.

  The car in the driveway, engine still running and lights blazing, gave a sudden blat of the horn. Through the glare, he saw Caitlin leaning over, mess of curls a dark shadow as she slammed her hand on the steering wheel a second time.

  Voices screamed from several nearby houses, people jerked awake by the sounds of windows breaking, alarms beeping, clanging, blaring, dogs barking before being abruptly silenced. Gunshots rang out from several directions as terrified homeowners tried to defend themselves against invasion. And still more bodies peeled into the small community of houses, running upright in most cases, though one or two hunched over or dragged a useless limb behind them. Their gaits might be awkward, but they kept up with the roaming packs.

  They’re here.

  * * * * *

  Buck moved fast, but not fast enough to avoid the leading attackers…zombies…become…whatever they were called.

  They rushed past houses, jumped over the hoods of parked cars, like they were making a beeline for him.

  Or his house.

  Maybe they were homing in on the house.

  They’re coming for me.

  She hadn’t said the last word, but then, she hadn’t needed to.

  It was obvious.

  Someone screamed inside the car. Could have been Jacob. Might have been Caitlin.

  Didn’t matter.

  The brass knuckles were on his right hand and he swung as the first person rushed in at him. Even with the headlights pointed right at him, making the form a black silhouette, he could tell it was a woman. Wisps of lace were sheer curtains before the light, fanning out around her torso like the gossamer wings of a butterfly. Whoever she was, she’d been changed—converted?—in the night, after dressing for bed in something wispy and sexy. He couldn’t see any black lines and had no idea whether she’d been bitten or scratched. Likewise, when she crossed in front of the headlights, her features were cast into deepest shadow. Was she young? Pretty? Were her features locked in a vacant smile, or was her mouth twisted in a snarl of vicious hunger?

  He found the place inside where the questions didn’t matter, where it was only him or them, and swung the knuckle
s at her face. He needed to get his son out of there.

  Nothing else mattered.

  The contact of brass-ringed fist on chin jarred his arm to the elbow. The woman went backward, body parallel to the ground before she landed.

  Another rushed in behind her, a man this time, arms out wide and swinging, fingers curved like talons.

  A single gunshot rang out, much closer than the muted pops from a few seconds before and a few houses away.

  The left side of the man’s head exploded outward, pieces of gristle and hairy scalp flying into the darkness.

  There were more coming.

  Buck reached the driver’s door, opened it and dropped inside.

  “Thanks,” he said, barely noticing Caitlin dropping into the passenger seat, her compact pistol clutched in her hands.

  “What about Mom?” Jacob asked from the back.

  The question tore at his gut, but Buck ignored it. The car had its child locks engaged because he could never remember to deactivate them. Jacob wouldn’t be able to jump out the back of the moving car. Buck could afford to avoid the question for a little while. Maybe Jacob would find the answer for himself.

  The car jolted as he twisted the gear shift dial into reverse. Two bodies caromed off on each side, hate-filled faces staring at the three people inside but not stopping to attack. Their focus was on the house.

  “What are they doing?” Caitlin whispered, awed.

  Buck backed away, cutting the wheel sharply to the right so the hood pointed to the left.

  More bodies streamed by. Over the sounds of chaos, he heard them banging on his front door. He hadn’t thought to lock it. They’d figure that out soon enough.

  “My God, Buck, look!” Caitlin said, pointing to the side of the house. One of the…become had climbed onto the large HOA-provided garbage can and was pushing and scrabbling onto the small ledge under the loft window.

  “Is Mom still in there?” Jacob asked. “Is she going to be all right?”

  His words were fast, the pitch higher than normal. He was close to panic.

  Join the club, Buck thought, slamming the accelerator to the floor and trying not to hit anyone as he raced out of the subdivision.