Season of the Dead

by Adams, Lucia

  CHAPTER 15

  Anaconda, Montana, USA

  Lucia

  We almost never slept, but were always moving, like gravity’s peculiar pull on river water. My body was used to the vibrating hum of the truck and the isolated quietness didn’t help me to sleep. Fred couldn’t sleep either. He kept sighing and moving around. After two hours, I asked him if he wanted to drive instead.

  “No. You said you wanted to go back and loot more tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, but there will always be places to loot.”

  “Go to sleep, Lucia.”

  “I can’t sleep.”

  “Try. You need to be alert for tomorrow.”

  “Okay,” I whispered.

  I closed my eyes and decided I wouldn’t open them again until morning, no matter if I slept or not. The creatures moved less at night, and we were relatively safe locked in the truck. I concentrated on an even pattern of breathing until I fell asleep and woke up before dawn, freezing.

  I nudged Fred, who jumped as he was startled awake.

  “Dawn is coming, and I’m cold. Turn the truck on.”

  Fred obliged me and we sat idling for a few minutes before we took turns peeing. Sometimes we pulled along the road, sometimes we peed in bottles in the back and tossed them out the window. Whenever we had been sitting, we always took the cautionary route and used bottles. We were never sure if a zombie was lying under the truck, waiting for us when we got out, or if they’d climbed up on the roof, ready to pounce. These were the scenarios I had come up with in my head, but so far, paranoia had served me well.

  We re-entered Anaconda and passed a Wal-Mart.

  “Wanna try it?” Fred asked.

  “There’s no point. They’re usually full of zombies and already looted. How about over there?” I pointed to a trailer park across the street.

  “Looks good to me,” Fred said as he pulled in. We slowly crept up and down the roads, scouting for large groups of zombies or signs of life. It was deserted.

  “It seems quiet.”

  “Yeah, it does. Maybe the zombies are migrating south naturally because winter is coming.”

  “I wish.” I rolled my eyes.

  “Are you suiting up, or going stealth?”

  “Stealth. Have gun, will travel.”

  “That’s my girl.”

  Fred stopped the truck and we armed ourselves quickly. I followed his lead into the first trailer. We made sure it was empty and began rummaging for items. I found Ramen noodles and wooden matches. Fred found toilet paper and two bottles of Gatorade. The next two houses were fails except for five gallons of gasoline in a can under the one car port.

  “Hey, hey, look at this.” Fred pointed to the number on the side, “Number sixty-nine. It’s gotta be lucky.”

  “I hope.”

  We cleared the house and started our hunt.

  “Wahoo! Candy galore,” Fred chimed as he emptied the contents of a cabinet into his backpack.

  I opened the fridge, “Gah!” I had to pull my shirt up over my nose. “Nothing in there we want.”

  “Hey, look at this,” Fred said as he handed me a piece of paper.

  “What is it?”

  “It was just lying there. They’re coordinates for some sort of camp or safe house.”

  “Lake McArthur? Where the fuck is that?”

  “It says British Columbia.”

  “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know; let’s take it with us.”

  I shoved the note in my backpack, “I’m gonna check the bedroom for a gun.”

  “Okay.”

  Under the bed, in the closet, and in the nightstand drawers were always the most likely places people hid guns. This person had none. In the nightstand drawer was miscellaneous junk. I pulled a photo album out from the drawer. I leafed through it and quickly shoved it into my backpack.If we’re inviting ourselves to someone’s safe house, it might help to have an offering when we get there.

  “Lucia,” Fred called in a hushed voice.

  I tossed a few more things into my bag, zipped it up, and raced into the living room. Fred was peeking out the curtain. “We have company.”

  “They can smell us, huh?”

  “Yeah, they look slow. They’re probably hungry as fuck.”

  “What do we do?”

  “There’s about ten of them, maybe more. We either run for it, or one of us can run while the other person waits here and brings the truck closer.”

  The thought of being stuck in the house alone pounded fear in my head. “We go together. Did you lock your door?”

  “No, did you?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “Fuck, Lucia.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s okay. Get your gun ready. Okay, on the count of three, we go—straight for the truck and don’t stop for anything, got it?”

  I nodded my head and buckled the strap to my backpack around my waist.

  “One… two… three…”

  We bolted out the door. I almost pushed past Fred as I ran. The truck was only about fifty feet from me, but between me and it stood a sorry excuse for a zombie. Her flesh was pulled off of the crown of her scalp and all she was left with was a mud flap of bleach-fried hair. Her femur was exposed and so were her toe bones.

  I ran at her, my arm stretched outward, pistol in my hand, and I fired at her head. Two shots landed in her face as she fell backwards. With a shot of adrenaline, I leaped over her collapsed body and pounded onward to the truck, glancing over my shoulder at Fred. Two zombies were closing in on him, so I stopped and shot at one. I missed, but it drew its attention to me as it veered away from Fred and headed in my direction.

  “Dear motherfucking Jesus in Heaven please let my fucking door be unlocked,” I prayed the runner’s prayer over and over again.

  I reached the door and it opened up immediately. I jumped inside, slammed the door shut and locked it, waiting for Fred. He was seconds behind, but the zombies were closing in on him. I checked my side view mirror, and it was clear. I opened the door and leaned out, taking aim at the closest zombie. He dropped like a log in front of the other zombie and tripped him.

  As the zombie fell, he reached his arms out for Fred, but just missed scraping the backpack with his bone-protruding fingers. Fred was locked in the truck, finally, panting and sweating. I was crying and I didn’t even realize it.

  He looked at me, but didn’t say anything. He started the truck and we drove off. When we were down the highway a few miles, he stopped the truck and rested his head on the steering wheel.

  “Is this what it’s always going to be like for us?” he asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I can’t keep doing this.”

  “Don’t give up on me. I can’t do this alone.”

  Fred looked at me. “Maybe we should just end it.”

  I shook my head, “Don’t talk like that.”

  We were quiet. The world was quiet.

  “We have that camp,” I whispered.

  “It’s probably full of zombies.”

  “We can try.”

  Fred looked at me and grabbed my hand. “Thank you—for back there. You were great.” He smiled at me, even though I knew he was forcing the smile. “Lucia, if you want to try that camp, I’ll go along with the idea.”

  I smiled. “I have hope.”

  “You may be the only person alive on the planet that has that.”

  CHAPTER 16

  Dublin, Ireland

  Paul

  So I ran. I ran from fear and pain, from the shame at what I’d done, from the exhilaration, and sheer bloody joy I’d felt while rampaging through the apartment block. How I had given in to the rage, ignoring all consequences. I ran from the image of Mrs. Watson diving from the balcony of her apartment and dashing her brains on the cobbles in front of me. From the memory of little Brian charging me, his face a mask of torment and hunger, right before I took his head off. Most of all, I ran bec
ause I didn’t know what else to do. I ran without thought or conviction, not knowing nor caring in which direction I fled.

  Rain poured down from a grim sky, soaking the streets in a torrential downpour. No amount of cleansing from the heavens could wash clean my sins now. My soul, like the overhead clouds, had darkened that day. Pavements and roads may be scrubbed, but the real foulness lies in our hearts and our deeds. Perhaps what was happening to the world really was God’s vengeance, a plague right out of the pages from the Old Testament. There were enough around the globe who claimed it so. They, like almost everybody else, were most likely either dead or dead walking. What does that say about God’s justice? If you believed in that sort of shite.

  I ran until I thought my heart would burst, and then I ran some more. The utter devastation of the city began to sink in as I skirted around abandoned and crashed cars, jumped over smashed glass and all manner of debris blocking the streets. We’d really had our heads firmly stuck in the sand, my fellow residents and I. How could we have been so innocent to believe a rescue might come? There was nothing or no one left. Maybe a few pockets of misguided souls, like us, were scattered here and there. But from what I was witnessing as I ran through the deserted streets, the end really was here.

  Dublin was once a home to one and a half million people, which meant one and a half million potential living-dead cannibals running out of snacks. It occurred to me then that I was likely the tastiest thing on the menu for miles. I still had Robbie’s axe in my hand; somehow it wasn’t that much of a comfort. So, running blindly through the zombie-infested streets of a ghost town was not a particularly clever thing to do? Who’d have thought it? Yet one more moronic thing to add to my never-to-do-again list.

  I almost literally ran into the first one as I rounded a corner. It was lurching along, minding its own business, and probably looking for a relative to gnaw on when I came into his life. It brightened him no end; I can’t say the feeling was mutual. That is, until I buried the axe in his head. It was becoming instinctive, and I was becoming adept at using it. Its legs buckled, and it collapsed to the floor while I wrenched the axe free from its shattered skull.

  There’s never only one though. Soon I was doing more than just running because I didn’t know what else to do, I was running because I was fucking terrified. I was beginning to attract quite the crowd. One or two I could handle, but any more than that and they were likely to swamp me. I remembered the woman who ran past my window being chased down by a mob of the infected. Not a great memory while running for my life. She had stumbled, and they were on her in seconds. I’ll bet she was having a right good laugh at me at that moment, Mr. Hide-in-the-Shadows while she gets her head ripped off.

  I needed a plan, but for some reason they tend not to form in the midst of blind terror. I stuck with the old one and just ran. I was afraid to look back and see how many there were, petrified that if I did I’d slow down, or worse, stumble and trip.

  Running into the courtyard of a block of council flats seemed like a plan at the time—that was until I realised there was only one way in and one way out. I was in, and a little over half a dozen walking corpses were blocking the out. There were four men, two women, and two kids. They truly were hideous—their exposed skin rotted, their faces a mask of demonic possession. I noticed one of the women had one arm missing from the elbow; it didn’t seem to bother her.

  Fear welled inside me like a physical knot forming in my stomach and rising all the way to my throat. I fought for calm. It was a fight I was never going to win as I tried to snatch oxygen into my lungs in ragged, sharp breaths.

  “Over here, mister.” A girl stepped out of a darkened stairwell leading to the upper stories of the block. I didn’t wait for a second invitation, and neither did the pack. I was running towards her from one direction; they were coming from another like she was the point of an arrow. As I drew closer, she raised her arms and I heard two loud cracks. Two of the infected dropped.

  Bam! Bam! Two more fell. Holy shit! She had a gun… and knew how to use it, too. She took out the two remaining adults before any of them got within spitting distance of her. The two kids were nearly on her then. Lucky for her, I was there.

  I took out the snarling eight-year-old and six-year-old with the axe.

  “Holy fuck! Thanks!” I panted.

  The girl grinned. She was pretty—about nineteen, I reckoned. She had long blonde hair. Her roots needed doing, but what can you do? She was wearing a denim skirt, white blouse, and a pair of brown Ugg boots.

  “It’s really great to see somebody. I haven’t seen a single soul except them things in over a week. I’m Ciara, by the way.”

  “You have no idea how happy I am to see you. Paul. Nice to meet you, Ciara.” I flashed her my best smile.

  “Do ya want ta come in for somethin’ to eat?” She asked. “I have a campin’ stove and some tins o’ stew up in me flat.”

  “That sounds really great,” I answered. In fact I couldn’t think of a single thing I’d rather do. Well, that and just curl up somewhere and sleep for a month. The adrenaline rush was ebbing away, and I felt absolutely dead tired.

  “Where did you get the gun?” I asked. I looked around the courtyard. Graffiti adorned all the walls—not even artistic graffiti, just ugly scribbles. A lot of the flats had their windows and doors boarded up. Unsavoury tenants evicted by the council, probably. One even had black scorch marks on the wall around the wooden hoardings. Nice area.

  “Oh, it’s me boyfriend’s,” she answered.

  “Oh yeah? Is he…” What do you say? Is he still around, or is he wandering the streets looking to eat someone?

  “He’s across the road in the playground. His name’s Martin,” she said.

  “Oh right, so there’s a few of you here, then?” I wondered why they didn’t move to a nicer and more secure location.

  “I have a little baby upstairs. Me son, we called him Liam.”

  “Just the three of you then?” What must it be like to have a baby now, I wondered. What a nightmare. Poor kids.

  “Nah, just me and Liam.”

  “And Martin,” I added.

  She looked at me, then, in a curious way, a sort of smile flickered at the corner of her mouth. “Come on,” she said and walked to the entrance of the courtyard. I followed, keeping a close eye on the infected we’d just taken out. I wasn’t in the mood for any more surprises. “Over there, see?” She pointed across the road at a small playground fenced off by some metal railings. Inside, strolling around in a circle, his feet crunching on broken beer bottles and what looked suspiciously like discarded syringes, was a hoodie-wearing, tracksuit-clad young man. I say ‘young man’ to be nice.

  “Here, Martin!” She called out. Martin looked up and growled. He ran to the railing and started shaking it, all the while baring his dirty, black and yellow teeth.

  “Oh, sweet divine Jesus,” I muttered.

  “That’s him there,” she said. I wasn’t sure, but I thought I could detect pride or maybe satisfaction in her voice.

  “Ciara,” I began, “he’s infected. You can’t help him.” It wasn’t an easy thing to say, but then I assumed it was not an easy thing for her to put her boyfriend down.

  “Wha’, are ya mad? He fuckin’ deserves everthin’ he gets. He’s a prick!”

  I took a step back, unable to hide the shock from my face.

  She walked into the centre of the road and started shouting at Martin. “I hope ya bleedin’ rot in there, ya prick! I hope yer fuckin’ eyes drop out and yer bollocks falls off!”

  “Eh, Ciara…”

  Then she shot him in the leg. It made no difference to him; he just kept clawing at the railing.

  “Prick!”

  “Maybe we should go inside,” I suggested, wondering if I should just start running again and get the fuck out of there.

  “Sorry. I’m sorry. You must think I’m mental,” she said.

  Noooo, the thought never crossed my mind.
/>   “I had a baby for him,” she said, “and then the little bollocks got me kid brother hooked on smack, and all the other kids around here.”

  “Okay, come on, let’s get inside.” I glanced over my shoulder at Martin; he was trying to bite through the fence but only succeeded in leaving half his gums smeared on the metal. I ushered her into the courtyard as quickly as I could. God alone knew what sort of attention that little show had attracted.

  When we got to the stairwell, she took me by the hand and led me up the steps. I don’t know why, but somehow I got the feeling I was not the first strange man to be guided by her up those stairs. The flat was cramped and full of clutter. A baby’s crib sat on legs in the middle of the sitting room floor. The place stank. I really was not getting a comfortable feeling about her or her home. She made straight for the cot and picked up a small bundle covered in a blue blanket.

  “Here, will you hold him while I get the stove on? I have some tea if you’d like some.”

  “Sure, that’d be cool.” I took the baby from her.

  It was only seconds, and another time I would have been quicker, smarter. But I was exhausted, traumatised even. I just wasn’t thinking straight. That is, until I felt something on my hand. I looked down. The toothless baby had its gums wrapped around my finger; I could even feel its teeth under the skin that hadn’t come down yet. Its milky white eyes were sunk into a grey rotting face.

  “Shit Fuck!” I yelled as I flung the baby from me. It hit the wall with a thud. “Jesus fucking Christ!” I screamed, examining my hand. The skin wasn’t broken. At least I didn’t think so.

  I ran into the bathroom and attacked the cabinet. I pulled out a bottle of disinfectant and poured it over my hand.Much good that will do, I thought. Fucking hell, gummed to death. What a way to go.

  “Ciara, your fucking baby is infected!” I roared from the bathroom, praying it hadn’t broken the skin. Please don’t let me get killed by an infant fucking zombie. I looked over my shoulder and saw her in the living room. She had the baby in her arms. “Nooo, Ciara!” I ran in and then stopped, totally horrified.