Zombies! (Book 4): Nowhere To Hide

by Merritt, R. S.

  Deciding words weren’t required at the moment Kyler headed the way indicated. He didn’t like turning his back on that shotgun barrel, but he did it without flinching. He walked through a door leading into a long hallway. There were doors on each side leading to different rooms. Hoping he wasn’t walking in on yet another psycho he randomly picked a door and rapped on it briefly before walking into the room.

  The room had two kids bunk beds setup in it. The bottom beds were occupied in each with the two top bunks open. Kyler walked towards the bed on the right. A flashlight beam played across his face from the lower bunk.

  “Just making sure you were one of the sane.” The man in the bunk said before clicking the flashlight off and disappearing back into the thick comforter covering the bed.

  Feeling as awkward as a recovering alcoholic at the beach during spring break Kyler flung his gear on the top bunk and climbed up the tiny kid ladder to get to the top. Feeling ridiculous he spread out on top of the kid sheets laid out on the top bunk. In the dim light provided by the uncovered window he could see he was snuggling up in Toy Story sheets. Feeling ridiculous or not it’d been a hard day and he fell asleep within minutes of his head hitting the Buzz Lightyear covered pillowcase.

  Chapter 22: Road Trip from Hell

  Doreen couldn’t stop crying. She had her hands covering her mouth to muffle her sobs. Zoey was trying to make funny faces at her to help. Caitlyn had slid closer to Doreen. She was gently covering her mouth to help keep her quiet and rubbing the little girls back. The Zombies outside the heavily tinted SUV were making so much noise it would be really difficult to hear anything anyway, but people who got sloppy ended up dead in this new normal.

  Kelly didn’t blame Doreen for freaking out. They were surrounded by a mob of psychos who’d like nothing better than to rip the skin off their faces and eat it in front of them. Watching Caitlyn pat her little girl’s back ignited a spark of anger. Anger at the world for putting them in this situation. The anger was quickly consumed by a wave of sadness. Sadness that this was what their lives had become. Sadness at how tiny and sickly all her girls looked. They were all filthy and hungry. She looked down at her husband who was fast asleep.

  Tony and Randy both were out. They’d each gotten the living crap kicked out of them outside the van. Not for the first time Kelly wondered why the Brotherhood cared so much that they’d escaped. They’d killed the sister of some big wig, but this was the middle of the freaking apocalypse. You couldn’t throw a can of beans without hitting a dead body. How much could that one life have been worth? The Brotherhood was wasting all kinds of resources coming after them. She sincerely hoped that this latest attack would be the last. Hopefully this most recent pile of dead soldiers would convince them to stop sending people after them.

  Eventually Doreen exhausted herself trying to hold back her own tears and fell asleep. Everyone else in the large SUV managed to pass out as well. Kelly found herself alone in the dark with her thoughts surrounded by a mob of demon possessed psycho cannibals. She lay there thinking how surreal it was she wasn’t completely horrified. Before this whole apocalypse thing she wouldn’t have slept in the house if a roach disappeared under the couch and they couldn’t find it. She never let the girls watch scary movies. She’d had a tough time going outside at night to take the trash to the curb.

  That woman was gone. In her place was a wiry tough survivor. She’d killed with her own hands more times than she could even remember. She’d experienced depths of despair she’d have never considered possible. She’d tempered that despair with moments of pure joy like when they’d finally found the girls again. Randy and she had become such a tight knit team that they really didn’t even need to talk out loud to communicate anymore. Third wheel Tony had become a part of their family. An adopted brother to both of them. They’d lost so many people she just didn’t know if she’d be able to take losing anyone else. Nothing would stop her from doing whatever was necessary to defend them.

  She stayed awake until her eyelids finally grew heavy. The second time she felt herself drifting off she nudged Caitlyn. There wasn’t much they could watch out for in the SUV. If anything did happen with that many Zombies surrounding them then basically all they could do was decide if they wanted to die making a run for it or just sit still and die. The big reason Kelly and Caitlyn needed to be up was to make sure none of the little girls started screaming in their sleep. Nightmares were a constant sleeping companion for all of them. Zoey seemed to get them the worst, so she was the one they watched most carefully. All of them had woken up covered in sweat and screaming in terror more often than they cared to admit though. The obvious problem being that your nightmare could easily turn into a waking nightmare if you made enough noise to attract any nearby Zombies.

  Caitlyn was awake to watch the parking garage slowly lighten up as morning settled over the city. There were still Zombies walking around outside the windows of the SUV, but she spotted them less and less. None had slapped on the windows or tried to peer into the SUV since her mom had passed the watch to her. She’d kept busy trying to preempt any nightmares by rubbing the girls backs. Myriah kept tossing and turning as well but so far, she hadn’t made any noise.

  Caitlyn left the girls to crawl over to where her dad was sleeping with his head on her mom’s chest. Kelly was sitting up with her back against the plush leather captain’s chair in the first row behind the driver’s seat. She had Randy’s head laid out in her lap and her hand was still wrapped around his hair where she’d been stroking his head before drifting off. They’d all have been much more comfortable in the actual seats but were making do on the floor out of an abundance of caution. They’d killed the engine when they climbed in to avoid attracting the Zombies. The cold air from the air conditioning lingered though despite the body heat given off by all of them in the confined space.

  Caitlyn noticed Myriah was watching her. She pointed over at the little girls and Myriah moved to take care of them. At some point they were all going to need to use the bathroom. That was something they were going to need to figure out how to take care of quietly and as cleanly as possible if they were stuck in here much longer. She knew that her parents were going to err on the side of caution. They’d probably insist on sitting in the SUV all day then making a getaway once the sun went down. It was going to suck trying to get through the trash strewn streets at night. As long as they moved fast, they should be able to rush past the Zombies who’d start emerging from their nests once they heard the SUV driving by.

  Knowing they probably weren’t going to be going anywhere anyway she opted to let her parents sleep a little longer. It’s not like they’d be able to have a conversation or anything anyway. They’d be making plans by pointing out the windows and playing charades. Not that it’d be possible to come up with anything overly brilliant. Caitlyn figured they’d end up cranking up the SUV and driving like crazy for the Disney side of Orlando. That’d put a whole city of the infected between them and the main Brotherhood hangout. She sat there trying to think of twists to add to their standard escape plan. By the time she noticed her dad staring at her from the eye that wasn’t swollen shut she’d only come up with one suggestion she thought might be worthwhile.

  Caitlyn started trying to pantomime the idea she’d come up with to her dad. He stared at her like she was a monkey trying to shake a booger off her finger. It took a while, but he finally understood what she was trying to tell him. He gave her a thumbs up accompanied by a shrug. She’d hoped for something a little more enthusiastic. She wondered if the shrug was because he’d thought of some reason her plan wouldn’t work. She’d basically communicated that they could push the SUV down the ramp until it was going by itself then just coast out of the garage. That’d have the huge benefit of not turning them into a giant magnet for all the Zombies within hearing range before they’d even made it out of the garage.

  As the interior of the garage lit up more and more everyone started groggily moving around. Zombi
es were still occasionally bouncing up against the car or walking by, but they were no longer surrounded. At least not based on what any of them could see from their positions down on the floor. Kelly motioned for everyone else to stay down as she slowly went around the SUV looking out each window to see what was going on outside. She was able to see the Zombies had cleared out at some point before dawn on two sides of the SUV.

  The problem was the areas with the corpses of the soldiers they’d killed strewn about. Zombies were still hunched down out there sucking the bones clean. She’d watched two Zombies fighting over the remains of an arm. The bodies had been mostly picked clean during the night by the hordes that had descended looking for fresh meat. The Zombies still out there were fighting for scraps. They were poking around for the pieces that’d fallen off in scuffles between Zombies over the long night of feasting. A couple of the Zombies were literally lying on the ground licking the pools of blood off the concrete. Kelly estimated there were still about twenty or so Zombies around the SUV.

  Twenty Zombies meant they wouldn’t be going anywhere any time soon. Twenty Zombies would make a ton of noise if they tried starting up the SUV and driving out. Twenty Zombies were enough to climb on the windshield and block their view while trying to beat in the side windows. Twenty was way too many for them to hop out of the SUV with knives and bats and try to take out quietly. With Randy and Tony both out of commission for the short term it would be pretty much impossible to try and take out the Zombies quietly.

  That meant they were sitting there another day probably. That meant they were going to have to stay extremely quiet and keep the girls quiet. They couldn’t risk attracting the attention of the Zombies that were only feet away from them. Kelly sighed knowing the day was going to be miserable. Just the bathroom pieces of it alone were going to be brutal. They had enough water and food to last a few days in the SUV if they had to. Considering how often they got stuck in this kind of situation they’d made it part of their regular procedure to always stock up on water and food to be ready for events like this. The bathroom part was going to suck. Nothing more fun than trying to get little girls to piss in a bottle when the slightest noise could catch the attention of the blood thirsty Zombies surrounding you. Not even counting the amount of hand sanitizer you needed after the girls completely missed the bottle.

  The day wore on. The small mob of Zombies around them gradually thinning out as the Zombies left to go do whatever it was Zombies felt like they needed to accomplish during the day. The girls passed around bottles of water followed by passing around warm bottles of urine to be tucked away in a pocket in the back seat of the truck. The terror wore off and the boredom set in. Kelly spent the day with her stomach in knots waiting for the outburst from one of the girls that’d spell their end. She was always five seconds from jumping for the driver’s seat to try and get them out of there.

  Tony and Randy slept through most of the day thanks to the medicinal cocktail Kelly whipped up for them. She knew she was putting them in a state where they’d be useless in a fight. Given how bad off they both looked though she didn’t think it was going to make much of a difference. She’d rather have them resting and healing up than lying there in pain. At least if they were sleeping their stress levels should be lower which she theorized could speed up the healing process. She thought once again about how badly she missed being able to Google first aid for random things. It’d also be nice to get an understanding of exactly what the drugs she kept feeding to her family could end up doing to them. She kind of understood the concept of milligrams and all that, but then again, she totally didn’t.

  The day lasted about a million years. Randy had finally woken back up and was drinking water when the light in the interior of the SUV started slowly dimming. Tony was using a bottle to recycle some of the water he’d already drank. The kids and Kelly were all super jealous of how easy it was for boys to pee in bottles. The descent into darkness meant they now had the opportunity to get out of the garage and Orlando altogether. The adults were all in agreement that Caitlyn’s plan made the most sense and they should try it. There was of course one big issue with the plan. The two Kelly thought should be getting out of the SUV to murder any remaining Zombies and pushing the SUV over to the ramp were the two who could barely move. On top of the physical pain they were in they also happened to both be completely stoned thanks to her.

  That meant Kelly, Caitlyn and Myriah would have to get out and handle any Zombies then handle the pushing duties. Kelly was rapidly losing interest in the pushing the SUV part of Caitlyn’s plan. On the plus side all of the Zombies seemed to have wandered off. It was also very possible they were all right around the corner and she just couldn’t see them. As the darkness descended, she knew their ability to see was just going to continue to get worse. Then it hit her.

  The men from the Brotherhood had been wearing night vision! She’d actually seen the funny looking masks sticking up from the piles of clothes and bones the Zombies had been slinging around. She knew it was going to sorely tax her final reserves of hand sanitizer, but they needed to get their hands on a couple of those night vision goggles. In a world where the safest time to move around was at night the goggles could be a serious game changer. All they needed to do was pop out of the SUV and go root through piles of human remains to find as many unbroken sets of the goggles as they could. Then they could scrape off the Zombie drool and ignore the entrails smell as they plopped the goggles right on to their own faces. This whole goggle idea was asking for a massive case of pink eye, but it could very well be just what they needed to get out of the mess they were in.

  Thinking of all the advantages that could be had by being able to see at night Kelly got more and more excited about the idea. She finally got excited enough about it to actually pull Caitlyn over and whisper the plan into her ear. Caitlyn shuddered at the parts about digging through the piles of remains to try and find the goggles but nodded her head vigorously as to it being something worth doing. Once she deemed it dark enough Kelly decided it was time to put the plan in motion.

  Randy seemed to be in slightly better shape than Tony, so he was moved up to the driver’s seat. He resolutely raised his head and put his hands on the steering wheel. The world was a little foggy and there was a good bit of pain, but he knew failure wasn’t an option. They left Tony in the back row of the SUV with the girls. They’d been warned multiple times that Tony was hurt and now they were all busy pretending to be his nurses. Luckily Tony was too drugged up to be hurt by all the random prods he was getting as the girls quietly checked him for boo boos.

  Kelly, Caitlyn and Myriah stacked up nervously by the rear passenger door. Each of them holding their hand weapon of the day. Kelly had a hatchet in her hand, Caitlyn was sporting the little crowbar Tony normally carried and Myriah had a wooden baseball bat. Kelly opened the door and they all poured out. They left the door open as they spread out and moved towards the areas that they knew the piles of remains to be scattered around in. Myriah went to the left hoisting her wooden bat over her head. She readied herself to swing hard at anything that moved near her. They’d discovered after some trial and error that wooden bats were easier to carry around since they didn’t make as much noise as the aluminum ones if you accidently banged them against something.

  They slowly felt their way forward in the pitch-black darkness of the garage. Sweeping their feet in front of them until they made contact then getting on hands and knees to pick through the piles of disgusting. Caitlyn fought down her gag instinct as she ran her hands over a ripped-up pair of sticky pants. She figured out which way the leg went and worked her hands up until she got to where the head should be. She felt something poking out of the head and began the complicated job of removing the goggles without breaking them. It was a job made more difficult by the machete that was stuck in the skull of the body she’d found. Under the goggles there was still a lot of loose skin and a dangling eyeball. Telling herself over and over to not try and identif
y any of the things she was touching she kept working on getting the goggles removed.

  Kelly was feeling pretty good about how this was all going down. She managed to find two pairs of goggles and get them off their previous owners with minimal fuss. Not bothering to try putting them on she made her way back to the SUV and put the goggles on the seat. She turned and shuffled around in the darkness until she found Caitlyn and Myriah. She helped them both get the goggles they were working on and all three of them went back towards the SUV. Kelly walked face first into a Zombie that’d wandered over to investigate the noises it’d heard. Kelly’s brain latched onto the idea that it was Tony standing there. He’d probably gotten tired of sitting in the back being poked and prodded by the overly helpful Doc McStuffin fans.

  “Tony?” She whispered without thinking. Her voice shaking a little bit. Her rational self knew better than to say anything out loud outside of a safe space.

  The Zombie went from curiously investigating a strange noise to full on screeching with blood lust as soon as the sound of Tony’s name reached its ears. It lurched forward sweeping it’s arms in a wide circle trying to find the person who’d just revealed themselves as a normal. One of the Zombies wildly swinging hands caught Kelly across the face knocking her to the ground. The Zombie dropped to its knees to try and find her. It desperately spread it’s body out in all directions trying to make contact. Guttural squeals and that horrifying screech erupting as it searched frantically for the person it sensed so close by.