by M. D. Massey
“Run that way,” Angie said while pointing backward. “Find her house from the front.”
It was the best plan she could summon. She'd been in other confrontations with belligerent patients over the years, and distraction was the order of the day until help could arrive. All she had to do was keep it away from Mary Beth, so she could call the cops. With a final look at her granddaughter, she pulled her keys from the ignition.
The man on the hood slid a bit but didn't fall off.
“I love you,” she said with despair. “You'll be fine, OK? Just run when the man leaves.”
“I-I love you, too,” the girl replied.
Angie opened her door and ran like hell. As fast as a woman of 58 years in decent shape could run in a pair of cheap tennis shoes. She left her car door open, assuming the thing would follow her. It did jump to the street as if to pursue, but it stood up and turned to Mary Beth instead. Angie realized her plan was doomed.
“RUN!” Angie screamed.
The guy turned back to her, unleashed an open-mouthed howl, but then jumped in the car. Mary Beth opened her door but didn't get out, so the sick guy crawled in next to her. Not knowing what to do, Angie ran around the rear van, and up to Mary Beth's open door. The girl screamed in mortal terror the entire time.
Angie had heard stories of exotic drugs making people do crazy things like cutting off their own noses or hands, but this was beyond her imagination.
So much blood.
Angie tried to pull the girl from the blood-splashed face of the man, but her seat belt was still hooked.
“Mary Beth, your seatbelt!”
“Grandma, help,” Mary Beth wheezed, like she was out of breath.
Angie moved to get a better look at the man. He was now in full sight, tearing into the soft flesh of the teen's side with a bloody mouth. To get to the seatbelt release she'd have to reach between the man and her granddaughter's body. It was impossible.
“Oh God, please help me,” Angie cried out.
She needed a weapon and checked the backseat for anything useful, but it was empty. She turned forward and saw the severed foot on her windshield, nearest the passenger side. She reached for it and brought it back to the gap of the door, ignoring the disgusting feel in her hands. Angie swung it as an awkward club against the man's head. He looked up and snapped several times at her. She tried to swing the foot again, but it was too slippery. It fell uselessly to the floorboard in front of her dying granddaughter.
The girl stopped moving.
This drugged out monster of a man had just killed her lovely Mary Beth. Angie looked at her through the tears in her eyes as the man continued to press his face into her bloody side. Angie took a step back and saw the big picture. The person or persons in the van were making no effort to help. They had done this intentionally.
When she looked back inside, the unnatural man was already facing her. She took a few more steps backward and tried to close the door. The man more or less slithered over Mary Beth and fell out of the doorway so he could crouch on the pavement. He looked at her with empty eye sockets. Angie felt a wave of despair envelope her. She stumbled and fell to her backside. She had to resort to crawling backward with her elbows ...
The sicko jumped on top of her, covering her with Mary Beth's blood.
“Oh God, no! HELP!” She screamed as loud as she could—as if finally realizing there was a need for it—willing someone in the neighborhood to rescue her.
Pinned to the ground, her last thought was of the girl in the front seat. How she failed her so completely. How quickly this all happened.
She felt the teeth go into her neck. She struggled as best she could, but the fear was absolute. She went from panicked resistance to abject surrender in moments. Her vision floundered, and her breathing became labored. She closed her eyes, asking God for forgiveness.
An eternity later, a man with a red baseball cap came into her field of vision. He shot something at the drugged-out man on top of her, and he ran away.
“Are you OK?” the rescuer said in slow motion.
“I don't know,” she tried to respond. “Where is Mary Beth?” Her voice was just a whisper because she couldn't catch her breath.
“She went to your house,” red hat said. “Run to her!”
Then he was gone.
Angie got up, teetering on the edge of awareness. Mary Beth wasn't in her front seat.
She's at my house?
Angie walked up the alley; compelled to reach the safety of her home. She looked down at her feet, but the sight of those shoes plodding ahead, one after the other, made her stomach churn. She tried to keep her head up, but that was painful. Her neck burned on the left side, so she pressed her hand to stop potential bleeding like a good nurse.
Angie went through the rear gate, and stumbled up the walkway through her backyard, and into the narrow channel between her home and the next. She held her arms out and could almost touch both brick walls, which for some reason made her giggle uncontrollably.
She rounded the corner of the house and moved up the ramp to the pair of front doors. Marty's entry was on the right. She looked at it for a long time. Marty could call for help. Marty could—
The cloudiness in her brain wouldn't allow her to complete the thought.
“I must get home to Mary Beth.” Returning home was important. She desired it the most.
She shuffled over to her own front door, to the left of Marty's. It was unlocked but was stuck—as usual. She gave it a good shove and it pivoted inward for her. She swung it shut. The steep wooden stairway loomed above. The bright lights in the entryway and on the stairwell hardly registered.
“I'm coming, Mary Beth.”
She held on to the banister as she took each step one at a time. She pulled herself with her hands as much as she used her legs. Several times, she became so dizzy she nearly let herself go. She giggled again, this time at the irony of surviving a grievous neck wound, only to die falling down some lousy steps. A pause was necessary at the top. She fell to her knees, depositing blood on the floor.
“I'll clean that up later, don't worry, Marty.”
Angie dragged herself to her door a few feet from the steps. The handle was a convenience to help her regain her feet. It was unlocked, and she tumbled through.
“I'm home, Mary Beth. I'm just going to lie down for a bit, OK?”
She wobbled in the direction of her bedroom.
I'll just put myself to bed. I'll feel better in the morning.
* * *
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About the Author
E.E. Isherwood is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of the Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse series. His long-time fascination with the end of the world blossomed decades ago after reading the 1949 classic Earth Abides. Zombies allow him to observe how society breaks down in the face of such withering calamity.
Isherwood lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his wife and family. He stays deep in a bunker with steepled fingers, always awaiting the arrival of the first wave of zombies.
Find him online at www.zombiebooks.net. Books by E.E. Isherwood
* * *
E.E. Isherwood currently has six books in the Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse universe. Visit his website at www.zombiebooks.net to be informed when future titles are launched.
* * *
The Sirens of the Zombie Apocalypse series
Since the Sirens
Siren Songs
Stop the Sirens
Last Fight of the Valkyries
Zombies vs. Polar Bears
Zombies Ever After
Only the Dead Don’t Die
A.D. Popovich
Only the Dead Don’t Die
Copyright © August 2014 by A.D. Popovich
All Rights Reserved
* * *
Fourth Edition 2017
* * *
License Notes
This book or any portion of this publication may not be reproduced or u
sed in any manner without prior written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living, dead or undead), business establishments or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book is dedicated to my wonderful mother.
. . . Thank you so much for always believing in me . . .
1
Scarlett Lewis yawned leisurely and happened to notice the alarm clock on the shabby chic nightstand. What, 1:13 in the afternoon? Jeez, I slept twenty-four hours. She slowly eased back under the sheet as confusion set in. Her head pounded with the most excruciating headache she had ever experienced, and the inside of her mouth felt like it had been slammed with a sledgehammer.
Slowly, agonizingly, like an obsolete computer hard drive forced to reboot, her brain defragged through the recent events. Without warning, the heartbreaking emotions she had suppressed burst to the surface, bringing anger, tears, and hopelessness. Kevin, her ex-fiancé, had jilted her days before the wedding and had disappeared to the Bahamas with his boss’s hot, spoiled brat daughter, according to one of her Facebook friends.
Really? Kevin was too serious to fall for “that type.” How could Scarlett compete with the perfectly tanned, tall, thin, socialite who looked absolutely breathtaking in a bikini? Heartbroken and humiliated, she felt completely worthless, for she had none of his new girlfriend’s glamorous features. Scarlett’s sable-black hair dipped dramatically into a widow’s peak, giving her almond-shaped, aquamarine eyes a rather witchy appearance. She made a great Morticia for Halloween, but most men seemed to find her prominent facial features just a little too much: her alabaster skin too pale, her eyes too intense, her lips too full, her smile too broad, and her nose too long and curvy. Her dimples were the only facial feature she liked, perhaps because the trait had been gifted to her by her long-deceased mother.
How could Kevin do that to me? Scarlett pressed her palms firmly against her forehead in a feeble attempt for instant pain relief. A few days after the wedding had been called off, her wisdom teeth decided to act-up. The pain had been unbearable. The wisdom teeth had impacted to the point where her only option had been oral surgery. Of course, she should’ve had them removed years ago. However, in the past, the pain had subsided after a few days. This time, the pain hadn’t gone away. Scarlett vaguely remembered Cyndi giving her a ride to and from the oral surgery appointment. That was about all she remembered except for the jilted part, which she couldn’t stop obsessing over.
Scarlett tossed restlessly in bed and fought with the sheet, unable to find a comfortable position. Her head throbbed. Her mouth throbbed. Her heart throbbed. All she wanted to do was disappear between the sheets until the pain subsided, but her stomach’s incessant growling motivated her out of bed.
She moped her way to the kitchen. A hot-pink sticky note sticking to one of the medicine bottles caught her attention: DON’T FORGET TO TAKE YOUR MEDICATION, LOVE CYNDI. Her devoted sister was always the thoughtful one. She dutifully took her next antibiotic dosage and ignored the plastic bottle of pain pills, knowing how addicting painkillers were.
“Please, shut up,” Scarlett moaned to the blaring sirens. There must be a bad fire nearby. Always lots of fires in August, she thought. It had been a long, hot summer for Roseville, and California was in the midst of another drought.
After suffering through a bowl of miso soup, she sighed and gave in to the pain by popping one of the painkillers Dr. Wong had prescribed. The thought of dozing in-and-out of sleep to an old favorite movie sounded comforting, so she perused her classic movie collection. Her eyes instantly lit up when she came to the title, Bringing Up Baby. A screwball comedy is just what the doctor ordered. A smile fleetingly tempted her lips but was overruled by the pain.
Droopy-eyed, she slumped on the living room sofa and watched the movie with the volume down to one notch. Immersed in the witty-quarrelsome banter of her beloved characters, Susan and David, it was as if she watched the movie in her mind on a huge drive-in screen. And when her favorite scene played, she wasn’t sure whether she heard it, watched it, or envisioned Cary Grant parading around in a marabou-trimmed negligee and ad-libbing in his legendary, exasperated tone, “Because I just went gay all of a sudden!”
The movie had provided a much-needed distraction. Unfortunately, blaring sirens brought back her angst and her pain. Jeez Louise, even helicopters? She peeked out the window but didn’t notice anything unusual. To drown the cacophony of sirens, she turned on every appliance she could think of: the dishwasher, the humidifier, the ceiling fan, and a meditational CD. There, that will drown out the real world.
Still, her head and jaw throbbed, causing utter agony. The prescribed painkiller had the meager effect of baby aspirin. Scarlett wished she had something stronger for the pain. Then she remembered the bottle of Vicodin Kevin had brought over when his back had gone out last summer. Did he leave the prescription here? When she finally found the bottle, she noticed it had expired. Better take two. She defiantly downed the pills as if they were the answers to all her problems.
Since the day—that absolutely dreadful day—Kevin had bailed out of the wedding and her life, Scarlett had resorted to cutting herself off from the three Fs: friends, family, and frenemies. She couldn’t handle another one of those, “So sorry to hear about you and Kevin,” texts or emails. So, when she noticed her cell phone vibrating nonstop, she impulsively stuffed the phone into the bottom of the laundry basket, threw the basket in the hall closet, and walked away in a huff. The world will survive without me . . .
2
Dean Wormer sat in the booth, sipping a glass of iced tea, eyeing his watch. It was 12:45 p.m. Looks like ole Frank’s a no-show. It was the second time this year Frank had forgotten their monthly luncheon at Kitchen 428. It was Dean’s favorite lunch spot, and despite missing the companionship of his buddy, his taste buds craved the bacon-wrapped meatloaf and garlic mashed potatoes he usually ordered.
LuLu, the dreary-smiling waitress, came around again. “It doesn’t look like your friend’s making it today,” she commented, most likely hinting if he intended on placing an order.
“Reckon not. How ’bout an order to go,” Dean said. “The usual.” LuLu knew exactly the way he liked it. He and Frank had been coming to this restaurant for a couple of years.
“Coming right up,” LuLu said with a haggard smile. “Did you call your friend? Bet he’s got the flu bug that’s going around. It’s pretty vicious from what they say.” LuLu’s eyes widened as if she knew something he didn’t.
Dean patted down his pockets. “Left my phone at home.” It was in the kitchen’s junk drawer along with other seldom-used doodads like mostly-used batteries (which might come in handy one day), lost-and-found screws, nuts, and bolts (which might come in handy one day), and his cell phone, which he needed today. He hardly ever used the outdated gizmo that looked more like a Star Trek Communicator than a phone.
“Sometimes, I worry about you. If you didn’t spend every waking moment fishin’ or fixin’ something, you’d know what’s going on. Please tell me you’ve heard of the new Super Summer flu?” she scolded with her cigarette-tarnished voice as if he were some old codger who didn’t own a television or worship his cell phone like the Holy Bible—like eighty percent of the U.S.
“As fate would have it, heard the scuttlebutt on CNN just this morning,” Dean said in acknowledgment. The news always over-sensationalized something or other, telling people what to think, whom to vote for, and what to buy. He didn’t pay much attention to the perfect-plastic-like talking heads of the day. He missed the trustworthy news anchors like Dan Rather and Lynne Russell. Those people he had believed in, believed what they had reported. Hell, even if it wasn’t true.
“This flu is serious stuff. Half the staff called in sick today. They got me pulling another double shift. You’d be
tter get the new vaccine, hon. They have them at Rite Aid,” LuLu nagged with a semi-fake smile. “I got my shot yesterday. Me being a smoker and all. I’m a high risk.”
Better tip her an extra buck. LuLu’s extra friendly today, Dean thought. He sat in the booth, waiting for his food, thinking that was probably it. Frank most likely had the new flu bug and had forgotten to call. Should I get the flu shot? Naw. He wasn’t one to hop on the bandwagon, but the look in LuLu’s eyes had seemed like a warning of sorts. Hmm, he thought it out, rubbing his chin. He did believe in synchronicity. And when things happened “in threes,” he took it as a sign, perhaps a sign from above, it was meant to be.
It was the third time he’d been advised to get the flu shot. First, there’d been the annoying email from his doctor stating he was in the High-Risk Category and needed to get the flu shot ASAP. Then the news reported that the World Health Organization issued an Epidemic Alert advising everyone to get the new vaccine. And now LuLu. Might as well go to the Rite Aid down the street and get it over with. He hemmed and hawed over it while waiting for his bacon-wrapped meatloaf and garlic mashed potatoes. He was anxious to get home to install the new set of spark plugs on the 18-footer Glastron boat he had recently bought for a song. He hated wasting time at the store. Wasted time for an old man like himself meant less time he’d have to cruise around in the boat he had so meticulously refurbished: The Twinkle Me Mary.
Dean grudgingly pulled his Ford pickup into the Rite Aid parking lot. What a quagmire. Every intersection was gridlocked. Another reason he hated the city. Although, he wasn’t sure if the small town of Woodland, California was considered an official city. Still, he spent as little time as possible there, preferring his country cabin near the meandering Putah Creek on the outskirts of Winters.
