The Breadwinner Trilogy (Book 2): Haven

by Stevie Kopas

  “She’s killing him! Michelle stop the car! She’s killing him!” Lulu pleaded and screamed. Michelle unintentionally pushed her foot down on the accelerator and lost control of the car as Lulu grabbed one of her arms. At the last second Michelle was able to regain control and hit the brakes but unfortunately smashed into an abandoned vehicle. The airbags didn’t deploy but Zach’s body was thrown into the front seat and he lay dying and choking on his own blood in Lulu’s lap. Lulu continued to scream uncontrollably as the dead woman in the backseat continued to devour Zach’s flesh. Michelle’s head had hit the driver’s side window hard, there was a ringing in her ears that seemed to drown out the tumultuous sounds in the car. She couldn’t believe the sight before her. Zach’s dying eyes locked with hers and she realized in that very moment exactly what had happened and what needed to be done. One of his hands gripped the garden light in her lap and thrust it toward her.

  Michelle jumped out of the car and in one swift motion opened the door to the backseat, dragged the flailing, screaming body of the undead pregnant woman out of the car and proceeded to beat her over the head with the heavy garden light until all movement ceased. She kicked the body to the side and slammed the door shut on her way to Lulu’s side of the car. Michelle’s movements were quiet and robotic. Lulu protested as Michelle attempted to grab hold of Zach’s body. Michelle said nothing as she slapped Lulu across the face and hoisted Zach’s half eaten body out of the car and slammed it onto the asphalt.

  She straddled his body and raised the garden light with both arms. Zach’s eyes shot open and locked with hers once more, but they were not the same eyes she had just looked into moments before as he lay dying in her car. His half eaten face and neck made her stomach turn but she swallowed her bile. He growled demonically and his torso squirmed under her as she plunged the metal garden light’s stake straight through the middle of his forehead. No more sound or movement came from Zach. No more sound or movement would ever come from Zach. In a matter of two minutes there was only Michelle and a catatonic Lulu left in a blood soaked Camry. The pair silently backed up and continued on their way to Emerald Park, the front end of Michelle’s car scraped against the pavement loudly before finally falling off and leaving them in silence once more.

  VI

  Lulu’s eyes stung from crying. Her head pounded and her skin felt tight. She wished she would wake up from this nightmare she was suddenly living. A week ago, if you had asked her how she was doing she would have responded “Never better.” Lulu was the carefree airhead type who broke the traditional Asian stereotype by never having studied a day in her life and barely making a C in any class she took. She immersed herself in girly things and ballet classes, cosmetology and pop music. If it weren’t for her family’s wealth, she’d never have a dime to her name. She was the type of girl who had been sheltered from the ugliness of the world, always getting her way and never having a real responsibility or worry thrust upon her. That’s more than likely what had attracted her to Michelle in the first place. Lulu didn’t usually hang around with the strong willed or intimidating type, but Michelle was like her in the ways that mattered to her: absolutely gorgeous, always got what she wanted and never turned down a party. But no matter how hard Lulu tried to silently hope and pray that she could turn back the clock, open her eyes and be in her oversized comfy bed, it just wasn’t possible. This mayhem was real. Her white tank top was stained with blood, her denim capris would never be untainted, her hair was a mess and for the first time she didn’t care how she looked. She was alone with Michelle and no one else in the world and she was terrified. A complete stranger had just murdered her cousin in the backseat and her roommate had then done the same to Zach. She understood. She desperately tried to convince herself that the pregnant woman did not come back to life and eat Zach’s face. She replayed the events over and over a million times in her mind and still couldn’t believe Michelle had stuck a garden stake through her cousin’s forehead.

  Lulu suddenly felt a wave of heat rush through her, the world spun and she felt like she was going to pass out. “Michelle, stop the car.” The words barely came out and Michelle didn’t respond. “Stop the car!” Michelle looked around and pulled into someone’s driveway. Lulu hyperventilated and stumbled out of the car. On her knees in the stranger’s driveway she dry heaved and spat. Michelle rushed around to her side, crouching down and gently rubbing her back.

  “You’re gonna be fine.” Michelle whispered to her. She didn’t like just stopping like this. She felt exposed to attack. Lulu was making too much noise and she had to get her back in the car. “Come on, we need to go.” She reached out and took Lulu’s arm.

  Lulu shrugged Michelle off as she vomited. “I’m not done.” She continued to spit and was now crying again.

  “Ok, I know that, but my car is pretty fucking disgusting right now, so it’s probably safer for you to be getting sick in there.” She grabbed her arm again but this time with more force. “Let’s go. Now.”

  Lulu pulled the bottom of her shirt up and wiped her mouth off, hurrying back into Michelle’s car. She looked at Michelle curiously. “Do you know what’s going on?”

  Michelle laughed, “Yes. We’re going to Emerald Park to lock ourselves the fuck inside and I am trying to keep us alive. Does that make sense of things?”

  “That’s not what I meant!” Lulu shouted at her. Michelle’s sarcastic smile disappeared and she looked solemn as she backed the car out of the driveway. “Zach is dead. That lady, she was alive and then she was dead and then she killed Zach. But then you killed Zach! I don’t know what the fuck is going on!”

  “Alright, please.” Michelle winced. “Stop yelling at me. Ok? I have no idea why this is happening but I can say it’s probably a good idea to stop wondering about it. You’ll drive yourself insane and you’ll be no good to me.” She cracked her neck and scanned the road, she reminded Lulu of a machine. “I’m sorry about Zach.”

  “Are you?”

  “Yes.” The women didn’t speak again until they got closer to the shopping center. Michelle was forced back onto the main road and made her way bobbing and weaving between abandoned and wrecked cars and then finally took to driving on the wrong side of the road. It was easier to avoid a head on collision than it was to make it through the tangled mess of cars on the westbound lane. “I’m a little worried that all of these cars are heading in the same direction as us.”

  “Most of them are empty.” Lulu stared blankly out the window.

  “Yeah, but why? Where did they all go?” Her question went unanswered as they continued driving toward their destination.

  They passed a bike shop on their right and Lulu perked up. “Hey, why don’t we stop there?” She pointed at the store and looked at Michelle. “It would be easier to get around and we would be less noisy. Nobody cares about cyclists, ya know?”

  Michelle appreciated the thought. “Yeah. I can’t ride a bike.”

  “Who doesn’t know how to ride a bike?” Lulu looked perplexed but Michelle just shook her head and ignored her. She sat back in her seat again and went back to staring at the chaos they were passing at a mere 20 miles per hour.

  There was so much debris and garbage in the road it was too dangerous to go any faster. Michelle didn’t want to risk breaking down in her already mangled vehicle or getting a flat tire and being stuck with the bike option. Lulu couldn’t believe the amount of blood and gore she saw on practically everything they passed. Bodies lie in the road half eaten and twitching. The several eaters they drove by ignored the car because they were too busy feasting on the prey they already managed to kill.

  Michelle’s grip on the steering wheel grew tighter as they approached Emerald Park from the highway. She slowed the car almost to a stop and her heart rate sped up. An enormous crowd of the dead were stumbling aimlessly about. Some of them running in circles, slamming into one another and then resuming their pointless actions. Other ones stood around staring off into nothing. The bodies were wo
unded in different ways, some of them actually looked normal. Michelle crept the car along and turned off onto the delivery road so they wouldn’t be spotted. She pulled off to the side and put the car in park. “Fuck.” She whispered under her breath.

  “What are we going to do?” Lulu’s hands shook and she ducked down in her seat. The delivery road was empty and lined with thick foliage on both sides, but she was so terrified of being spotted that she tried to make herself disappear into the front seat.

  Michelle shook her head from side to side, racking her brain for a plan of action. She put the car in drive and Lulu panicked, grabbing her hand, eyes wide. “I need to know what the back lot of our building looks like, Lu. We can’t stay here.” Lulu pulled her hand back and crossed her arms, hugging herself tightly. Michelle made it down the road and slowly turned the corner into one of the back parking lots of Emerald Park. The lot was fairly empty except for three or four cars here or there and it looked like the eaters were sticking to the main entrance near the highway for the time being. She kept inching the car forward and then stopping, waiting for a sign that they’d been noticed, but all was well so far. She pulled up as close as she was going to get. They were diagonal from the back entrance to their building, right in front of a Target and across from a shoe store. Another back row of buildings were behind them, leading to the other side of the enormous shopping center that was closer to the beach. The lot and road in front of them was thick with eaters. Michelle counted the few blessings she figured she had left that she’d gotten them this far. She had no idea how she was going to get them, along with their belongings, safely into the building. She was out of room for positive thought in her head. She didn’t have to say anything to Lulu. She glanced over at her and Lulu already seemed somewhere far off in her own mind.

  Michelle sighed and rested her pounding head on the steering wheel, closing her eyes and listening to the soft yet almost absent hum of the hybrid’s engine. She felt her mind begin to fill with songs and lyrics and wished she hadn’t destroyed her phone so carelessly, she’d at least like to die with some music. She opened her eyes and saw that Lulu rested her bloodstained shoes up on the dashboard and curled herself up in a ball. Michelle’s car was trashed and she didn’t even care. She absentmindedly counted the laces on Lulu’s shoes and hummed a song to herself.

  She suddenly shot up and came back to reality. “We’re getting into that building.” Lulu slowly rolled her head to the side and looked at Michelle, tears in her eyes. “Wipe those tears away darlin’,” Michelle fiddled with her keys, it was hard removing her store keys with the ring so close to the ignition. She placed the salon’s key ring on her middle finger so she didn’t lose it and put her hands on Lulu’s shoulders, moving her body towards hers. “I am gonna need you to listen to me very carefully. I really need you to get it together and give me a hundred percent right now Lu, can you do that? Do you trust me?”

  Lulu nodded. “What are we doing?”

  “Take your shoes off.” Michelle began removing her own shoes and pulling the laces out. Lulu followed suit. “Do you have your phone on you?”

  “No, I have Zach’s.”

  “That’ll work. Pull up his music player.” Michelle fished her auxiliary cable out of the center console.

  “Michelle, at least tell me what we’re doing.”

  A smile danced itself across Michelle’s face that made Lulu a little uneasy. “We’re going to crash my car into the shoe store.”

  VII

  Michelle gently eased the car up beside another and the two women climbed out quietly. They carefully took their belongings out of the trunk and cautiously loaded up as much as they could from the plastic bags into bags they could more easily carry.

  “You seriously didn’t need to bring this much stuff.” Michelle rolled her eyes as Lulu reluctantly parted ways with half of the clothing and cosmetics in her duffle bag and filled the empty space with the things they had scavenged from the corner store, setting the bags behind the other car. They both were down to their socks and Michelle hastily rigged the steering wheel with the shoe laces from their sneakers. Lulu handed Michelle her cousin’s phone and she plugged it in to the auxiliary cable. She grabbed the remaining garden light from the already opened package and smirked at it. Who knew how useful these things really were, she thought to herself as she prepared to set it up on the accelerator.

  “Oh my god.” Lulu whispered and tapped Michelle on the shoulder.

  Michelle froze, expecting the worst. She slowly turned on the balls of her feet, still crouched behind the car door, in the direction Lulu was now pointing. Two people were hiding beside a truck on the opposite end of the parking lot. The woman was peering over the bed of the truck, scoping out the position of the eaters and the man was waving at them. “No way.” Lulu scowled at Michelle. “I said no way, Lu. Have you already forgotten the last time we ran into somebody?”

  “Of course not! But we can’t just abandon them out here!”

  “Goddamnit, keep your voice down.” Michelle poked her head up to check for danger but they remained unnoticed. “We can abandon them. And we will. I’m not fucking this up for strangers.”

  “I won’t go with you then.” Lulu’s eyes began to get watery again and Michelle clenched her fists.

  “Un-fucking-believable. You are unbelievable. You know that?” Michelle shoved her over in the direction of the other car. “Get over there and stay there. I’ll handle this.” Michelle crab walked over so she was in plain sight of the couple. They were both looking at her now, she put a hand up, signaling them to wait. She laid her body down flat and pointed to the ground, imitating a crawling motion, hoping they understood. They both laid down and waited for her signal. She popped back up and had another look at the group of eaters milling about in the road up ahead. She motioned for them to head toward her. The man began crawling quickly but the woman had gotten up and started toward her in a sprint. Michelle panicked and put both hands up, she was full of anger and she hoped the idiot could see. The man grabbed her leg and was saying something to her, she looked around and dropped down on her belly again.

  Michelle glanced back at the dead, they were somehow still oblivious to the shenanigans occurring in the parking lot.

  It took five more minutes for the couple to finally make their way across the parking lot. They had to keep stopping and laying still when Michelle would notice eaters randomly turning in their direction. To Michelle, those five minutes felt like an eternity.

  The man began to speak to Michelle when they were safely behind the abandoned car with Lulu. Michelle shook her head. “We don’t talk now. You follow me and that’s that. Understand?” The man and woman both nodded. Lulu and Michelle gathered their duffle bags and strapped them to their bodies. Michelle pointed at the few remaining plastic bags and then pointed at the woman. She wasn’t carrying anything and Michelle decided she needed to make herself useful. Once everyone was in a ready position and away from her car Michelle went back to the driver’s side and picked up Zach’s phone. She turned the volume all the way up and simultaneously pressed play and shoved the garden light into place on the accelerator and the hybrid’s engine whined to life in time to the sound of the music. “I hate the Smashing Pumpkins!” She angrily punched the steering wheel twice, the second time letting her fist linger and allowing the horn to blare. The attention of the dead was definitely aroused and their ravenous wails filled the air. She slammed the gear shift into drive and rolled away, the car took off across the parking lot as planned but didn’t slam into the shoe store. “Shit shit shit, keep going.” Michelle willed the car to keep moving as it plowed into the undead at full speed, bodies crunched and flew over the Camry as it drove off down the road. She didn’t care where it went, as long as it kept them chasing it. “Let’s go!” The group jumped up and ran full speed toward their destination. A loud crash followed by broken glass and grinding metal could be heard, yet the music still played. The dead roared and howled, ca
using a raucous unlike any the living had ever heard. It sent a rush of chills down Michelle’s spine as she silently said goodbye to her beloved red car and pulled the set of keys off her finger. They had just made it by the set of dumpsters and a small delivery dock for the restaurant when they heard an extra pair of footsteps behind them.

  Lulu inevitably screamed when she saw the eater in pursuit and to Michelle’s surprise the woman who had joined them grabbed her and covered her mouth, talking softly to her and trying to calm her down. “Get that door open!” The man called to Michelle and dropped his bag, pulling a hand hoe out of his cargo shorts, he plunged the small tool into the side of the eater’s head as it arrived. He quickly pulled it back out with a grunt and the hideous thing collapsed to the ground.

  “I love garden tools so much right now.” Michelle said to herself excitedly as she turned the key and pulled open the back door to the building. “Everybody in!” It was a miracle that she got the door closed in time as the eaters finally lost interest in the Toyota and were swiftly making their way to the group’s location. They savagely beat on the fire door, their screams similar to the howls of demons.

  Lulu whimpered and the woman held her tightly, stroking her hair. She was a short woman like Lulu but Michelle could tell she was in her 40’s. She had dirty but nicely manicured nails and wore her red hair in a short bob. The man was probably the same age as her, with a farmer’s tan and long brown hair pulled back in a low pony tail. He wiped his hand on his already dirty brown shorts and held it out to Michelle. “I’m Desmond. This is my wife Catherine.” Michelle shook his hand and waved at Catherine.

  “That’s Lulu, I’m Michelle.”

  “Thank you for helping us out there.” He placed the garden hoe back into his pocket and Michelle nodded. “You ladies have a plan?”