Books of the Dead (Book 8): The Living Dead Girl

by Spears, R. J.

  Weak rays of sunlight streamed in through the windows finally ushering in the morning, but there was nothing all that warm and welcoming about it. Kara was missing, and I had no idea where she had gone.

  “Be careful,” Doctor M said as he stumbled backward, barely catching himself by putting a hand against the wall.

  “Where could she go?” Lori asked.

  “Kara!” I yelled again, my voice echoing into the building.

  I ran down the hallway with Richard, Lori, and Alex following me to the room Brother Ed had retreated into after slipping into his depressive state. I called it his fortress of solitude. His mood was bad enough before Kara had been bitten, he was almost morbidly morose now. So it was good he wasn’t hanging around for every minute of what was going on with Kara.

  I slammed the door open, and Brother Ed’s arms flew up into the air. As it turned out, he had been reclining on a bed he had pushed into the room, and I had apparently startled him.

  “What in all tarnation,” he exclaimed.

  “Brother Ed, have you seen Kara?” I asked.

  “I...I thought she would be dead by now,” he said.

  “Well, she’s not,” I said. “She survived.” I left out the bit where she did really die and came back to life.

  “Then why are you asking me where she is?” Brother Ed said, his eyes barely half open from waking from a dead sleep.

  “She was in her room, now she’s not there.”

  “I have no idea where she is,” Brother Ed. “Maybe she wasn’t in as good as shape as you thought and she went somewhere to die alone?”

  Richard peered over my shoulder and said, “Well, aren’t you just a ray of sunshine.”

  “Yeah, he’s doing his best Eeyore, isn’t he,” I said. I backed out of the room and let the door slowly close, leaving Brother Ed in darkness.

  “Kara,” I yelled. Again my voice echoed down the hallway, but no response came.

  “Listen,” Richard said, cupping a hand to his ear to hopefully catch some sound.

  Maybe his hearing was better than mine. I had been in a lot of firefights and taken some nasty blows upside the head. It was a wonder I could hear at all, or even think for that matter.

  “There,” Richard said, and this time I heard it.

  A door slammed closed somewhere in the building, sounding like a crypt door slamming shut, the echo decaying.

  “Where was that?” I asked, feeling an anxious energy burning inside my chest as I tried to track the disappearing sound.

  “I don’t know,” Richard said. “It sounded like it came from the stairwell.”

  “Why would she go into the stairwell?” Lori asked.

  “How do we know it’s Kara?” I asked.

  Doctor M cleared his throat and said. “We came to find your Kara, and she is gone. You said she was upset. It seems logical that it would be her.”

  “Way to deduce, Sherlock,” Richard said.

  Footsteps sounded from down the hall, and Alex appeared in the lab’s doorway. “What’s going on?” She asked.

  None of us spoke for a moment, but Lori finally said, “Kara’s missing from her room.”

  “What the hell?” Alex said.

  “Where would she go?” Richard asked.

  “Or why would she go anywhere?” Doctor M asked while rubbing his chin.

  “Joel said she wasn’t taking being...being revived well,” Lori said.

  Alex started our way and said, “We should check the floor. Maybe she’s disoriented from Doctor M’s concoction. Who knows the shit he put in that thing.”

  “I’ll have you know that we applied every bit of sterile and sanitary practice, holding ourselves to the highest--” Doctor M started, but I cut him off.

  “Be quiet!” I shouted, and Doctor M jumped a little. “We need to listen to see if we can hear where she might have gone.”

  Alex made it into our group five seconds later. “We should clear the floor first. We can break up into teams. Richard and I will take the left side of the hall. Doctor M, you, Lori, and Joel take the right side. Call out when you’ve cleared a room, then move on.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” I said, eager to do something to find Kara.

  We were about the set this little plan in motion when a small voice filtered down the hallway toward us. “Someone just walked out of the building onto the plaza.” It was Naveen, her head was sticking out of the doorway to the lab.

  “What the fuck,” Alex said softly.

  “Kara,” I said and ran down the hall toward the lab.

  I was beside Naveen in less than five seconds, “What did you see?” I could tell I came across too intense because Naveen stepped back and her eyes went wide. “Sorry, let me start again, what did you see.” This time I measured words and work to stay somewhat calm.

  “Someone walked out into the plaza where...where all the monsters are,” she said.

  Any joy I felt after Kara had been revived was totally gone. It took everything I had in me not to go into full panic mode, but I rushed past Naveen to the windows and pressed my face against them.

  Down on the plaza, I saw dozens of zombies milling about. In the midst of them was a figure with short, light silver colored hair ambling along. Its clothing wasn’t torn or tattered, and it seemed to be moving with some purpose. Its back was to me, so I couldn’t see its face, but an icy feeling seeped into my legs and was working its way northward and up my body.

  I heard the others make their way into the room. Alex made it beside me before anyone else.

  “Is it that fucker we saw downstairs?” She asked.

  I watched the figure, unable to look away.

  Someone pushed between Alex and me, and while I didn’t look, I knew it was Naveen because I saw her dark hair out of the corner of my eye.

  “Where is Kara?” Naveen asked.

  Fixated, I continued to follow the figure as it moved across the concrete plaza between our building and the next one. The plaza opened to the left and led to the street we had walked on to get to this research building. To the right was a narrow passageway where you could exit in the direction of another street. This also led onto the intramural sports fields with their green grass looking like a carpet, lush and thick.

  “Who is it?” Lori asked as she and the others made it to the window.

  I couldn’t say anything. My voice had escaped me as I looked on the figure down below.

  “Oh my God,” Alex said in the quietest voice I had ever heard her speak in.

  Richard spoke next in the same astonished tone. “Is that her down there...there among those things?”

  The cat was out of the bag. Kara had left the building and was down there, walking among the deaders. Why she left was beyond me. Why she didn’t come back nearly broke my heart, and I had enough of getting my heartbroken that day.

  “Why aren’t they attacking her?” Naveen asked, her voice light an airy as if she was afraid of even asking her question. That asking it might break the spell and the zombies would go into a feeding frenzy and tear Kara apart.

  “Look,” Doctor M said, sounding somewhat excited. “Some of them are starting to follow her.”

  Indeed, Doctor M was right. It wasn’t as if they were lining up behind her in a straight line, but the deeper she waded into their midst, the more they seemed to congregate around her. It was as if she had some sort of magnetic and irresistible pull. The group moved toward the wider of the openings to the left.

  “Why are they grouping up around her?” Lori asked.

  Doctor M made a slight humming noise, as if using the sound to consider the question, then said, “Perhaps the vaccine has changed her body chemistry. Maybe she is emitting a new pheromone that attracts them. That could be why they are not attacking her, too.” He put his hand to his chin. “You know, we have always wondered why they have never attacked each other. Perhaps--”

  Richard cut Doctor M off. “Doc, this ain’t the time for you to start writing a new re
search journal piece.”

  With that, Doctor M went quiet.

  “Where is she going?” Naveen asked, and her voice cracked a little as she clutched onto my arm for support as she leaned into me. I wasn’t sure I was the best sense of stability at that moment. My head felt light, and my legs seemed to be going rubbery.

  The congregation moved closer and closer to the opening, but it suddenly stopped as its leader stopped walking. The followers, moving in that slow and deliberate manner that they always did, came to a stop behind her. The figure slowly turned and looked up at our little group, all of us pressed against the glass windows of the lab, staring down onto the plaza.

  “Kara,” Naveen and her voice was thick and moist. She pressed her hand against the window as if she could reach down to Kara.

  Kara looked up, her gray face peering towards us with those lifeless eyes. And I was sure my heart would break tight then and there. It had had enough. It was done.

  “Oh, no,” Naveen said. “Oh, no.”

  Kara continued to gaze up at us. The sun finally broke high enough in the sky that its rays caught her face, blooming over it, making it almost radiant. But there was nothing bright about her eyes. They looked like holes burnt into paper.

  Lori reached over to Naveen and slowly peeled away from me. “Come on, honey, let’s get away from the window.”

  Naveen clung to my arm, but her hold was weak, and Lori easily pulled her away from me, leaving me alone. I heard her begin to cry as they led her out of the room, but I didn’t look back. My attention was riveted on Kara, who remained in place, looking at me. The zombies milled around her. One bumped into her shoulder, and it must have broken her from her trance because she dropped her gaze.

  She turned away from us and slowly walked around the corner of the building and out of view. Her zombie congregation followed her around the corner with most of them disappearing from the plaza, but a few steadfast ones remained. For some reason, in my mind, they looked lost.

  “I’ve got to go after her,” I said as I pushed off the window.

  Alex jumped over into my path and said, “Whoa. You can’t go out there.”

  “Kara is out there,” I said.

  Richard moved over and stood beside Alex, creating a barricade with their bodies. “You will die if you leave this building.” He looked at me in that way a parent might when talking to an irrational child.

  “I have to go after her,” I said.

  “You will die,” Alex said.

  “But she’s out there on her...own.”

  “She left under her own power,” Alex said. “As you saw, she’s able to walk safely among them. You can’t do that.”

  “I can’t let her go,” I said, and I could almost hear myself whining.

  “What about Naveen?” Alex said. “Are you going to leave her without a mother...and a father?”

  “That’s not fair,” I said.

  “Life’s not fair, buttercup,” Alex said. “We’ve all lost people we cared for. You have to pick yourself up and get on with life.”

  “Alex may be a bit blunt,” Richard said, “but that doesn’t make her wrong. You know you can’t go out there. Right?”

  I looked at the two of them, not wanting to hear their irrefutable logic, but I could not ignore it. That didn’t mean I had to admit it. And that didn’t mean I had to break down and cry in front of them. Instead, I pushed through them and left the room, walked down the hallway to the room where I had witnessed Kara’s death and transformation. As soon as I stepped inside, I closed the door, wanted to die, but didn’t.

  Life had become cruel in that way. There were a million ways to be killed in our undead world, but when you really wanted to, you just couldn’t die. You had to go on living while life tore your heart out of your chest and stomped on it.

  So, I shut myself in the room and didn’t come out for the rest of the day. No one bothered me during that time.

  Chapter 15

  Monster

  I am a monster.

  That thought went through her mind as she stood among the wretched mass of zombies huddling around her. They didn’t necessarily look at her, but for some uncanny reason, she attracted them. When she moved forward, they moved with her and even more seemed to gather near her. When she stopped, they stopped. If was as if, by her mere presence, she were collecting them.

  Why don’t they just attack me and get this over with? She thought.

  She didn’t understand why they hadn’t swarmed her when she left the building. Then again, she didn’t know why she went out on her own. She just knew she couldn’t stay there anymore. She didn’t belong among the living any longer. It wasn’t her place.

  She also acknowledged another reason for leaving, but it wasn’t as evident as what had happened inside the building. Deep within her core was a hunger that was growing. One that she wanted to deny, but one she might not be able to ignore.

  She stumbled along the street, not really knowing where she was going, just moving out of some basic instinct. It was impossible to ignore the crowd gathering behind her. Their shuffling footsteps followed along like a faithful herd of sheep.

  After about twenty steps, she whirled around and screamed, “Why don’t you leave me alone?” Her voice echoed off the buildings and withered away in the maze of streets making up the hospital complex.

  Then she wondered why her voice wasn’t hers own any longer? It was low, gruff, but raspy. But it was really no different from the rest of her body. In a way, she didn’t feel completely connected to it anymore. Her flesh was numb from her head to her toes. She felt the impact of her feet with the ground, but each footstep was dulled from full sensation. Her body seemed more like a shell, distant and remote.

  She felt as if she might cry, but she had lost that ability in the transformation, too.

  What am I? She thought. What have I become?

  The zombies continued to follow her along as she proceeded slowly down the street, her head slumped forward. She felt listless and without any internal energy. She knew she wasn’t one of the undead, but she wasn’t human any longer.

  What about my baby? Is it even still inside me?

  With those thoughts, she stumbled sideways, knocking into a couple of the zombies that had gathered by her. They lost their balance and went down onto the hard pavement, but she didn’t care. She had to get away from them. They were terrible, awful creatures that only cared about their hunger.

  Her eyes searched the buildings around her, and she saw a small two-story affair to her right. It was made of brick, and its only windows were opaque glass blocks situated at the top of each of the two floors. In her estimation, it looked to be a maintenance building or something, but that didn’t matter. She just had to get away from these damn zombies.

  She cut to her right and set out toward it. Her undead contingent veered off after her, moaning and groaning tunelessly. Their stumbling feet slapped the pavement behind Kara, and the combination of their groans and footsteps were about to drive her over the edge that she had already fallen over once. Only this time, it seemed like a dark abyss was threatening to overwhelm her.

  She saw a heavy metal door on the north side of the building and headed for it. She tried to block out the sounds of the herd behind her, but it was nearly impossible. The only thought in her mind was getting away from them.

  When she got to the door, she tried the handle, but it was locked solidly shut. She threw back her head and cursed loudly. The door had to open. It just had to. She had to get away from these undead things starting to pile up behind her.

  She pulled back her fist and slammed it against the door, splitting the skin on her first two knuckles wide open, but she didn’t feel a thing. Dark reddish blood dripped off them, but she had enough sense to know that pounding on the door wasn’t going to open it. So, she moved along the side of the building, looking for another entrance.

  On the north side of the building, she came upon a truncated loading dock th
at might service a small truck or a couple of cars. Concrete steps led up onto the dock, and she rushed up them, feeling an urgent need to escape the undead pursuing her. There was a tall, but narrow metal accordion door and a set of sturdy metal doors next to it. When she tried the metal doors, she found them locked tight, but when she tried to push the accordion door up, there was some give.

  This has to work. I have to get away from these things.

  She knelt down and pressed her fingers into the narrow crack between the bottom of the door and the concrete floor. Skin peeled off her knuckles, but she didn’t feel a thing. Once she had a firm grip, she started pulling the door upward but met some resistance. It didn’t want to open.

  She cursed again, but then let her mind calm as she considered that the door probably opened by a motor of some sort. With the electricity out, there was no way to lift it unless you had two or three strong men or a jack, but she was alone and had no tools of any kind.

  She lowered her head against the door and wanted to cry, but like before, no tears came.

  She wedged her fingers back under the narrow crack at the bottom of the door and put her legs and back into it. This time she felt it give a little. She redoubled her efforts and felt the sensation of her muscles straining, but none of the accompanying pain.

  “Open up, you fucker,” she shouted.

  The door slowly moved upward. From inside, she heard a loud mechanical clicking noise that seemed to correspond with each time she tugged the door upward. It had to be the motor resisting her.

  “Well, fuck you, motor,” she said as she yanked as hard as she could.

  The motor fought against her but finally lost the battle after five more seconds with a loud metallic cracking noise. Her muscles strained, lifting with supernatural strength, and the door slowly opened about three feet from the floor.

  She let go of the door and it held in place while she panted from the exertion.

  The zombies started to make their way up the narrow concrete steps, and she desperately didn’t want them to follow her inside. So, she lowered herself onto the ground and rolled under the door and into the darkness of a back loading area.