The shot would be too loud and she didn’t have enough bullets for all of the zombies. She could take out one or two, maybe even three. A horde? No way. She’d be able to shoot three and then shoot herself, and that wasn’t really how Alice wanted to die.
She reached the front of the shed and peeked out the little hole. The sun was setting. She had a feeling they’d be spending the night in the shed.
What if Mark had a nightmare?
She was sure he’d thought of it, too, although he hadn’t said anything. They could try to stay awake until the Infected gave up and left, but she had a feeling that would be after dawn. They were always more active at night, always louder in the darkness.
Alice choked back a gasp when she saw what was happening. There were so many. She saw at least 30 of them. Maybe there were more. She tried to count but gave up. They were swarming around the house, walking in and out of the back door.
One of the creatures had broken the window on the back of the house, but from the inside. Had he tried to climb out on purpose? Or was he just stupid? He was hanging out of the window. Half of his body was inside, but half was hanging out of the window. She saw his arms flailing around, saw the blood and ooze dripping from his face.
Alice closed her eyes for a second to regain her composure. She was glad she’d done so much killing this week because now she wasn’t scared or afraid. Not just now. A week ago, she would have screamed if she saw this scene. Now she was just trying to figure out a way to escape.
Mark was right.
They wouldn’t be able to leave until the zombies did. Unless they started heading for the shed, they’d wait them out. If even one or two of the creatures noticed the little building in the backyard, though, they’d have to risk it. They’d have to run even though it probably, almost certainly meant dying.
She knelt there at the door for a few more minutes. The zombies seemed brainless, ordinary, except for one that stood off to the side. It stood perfectly still, perfectly silent. It almost looked like it was watching the others.
But that couldn’t be, could it?
The creature didn’t seem to have the baseless urge to tear into the house, to destroy it to get food. It seemed patient, almost pensive.
What the fuck?
She’d seen a few like it before, but ignored them. She’d pushed them from her mind and not worried about it because she’d had other shit on her plate. She’d been trying to survive, trying to cope with the fact that the dead were alive, trying to deal with the new world she was living in.
Maybe that had been idiotic of her because now Alice wondered what that zombie was thinking.
There was no doubt in her mind that it was thinking.
Chapter 6
“There’s something wrong with the zombie,” Alice whispered when she was back by his side.
“I know.”
“The tall one. The one with the suit.”
“I know.”
“He looks conscious,” she whispered.
“I know.”
“What the fuck is happening, Mark? I thought these things were brainless.”
Maybe some of them were, but not all of them. Mark had noticed it, too. The zombie stood just off to the side, just out of the way while the other ones destroyed the house in search of food. Perhaps it was a leader of some sort.
Perhaps it was just a coincidence.
But Mark didn’t believe in coincidences anymore. They’d seen too much crazy stuff the last few days for that to be a viable belief system. No, now he thought that zombie was smart. He thought it was smarter than it looked. He thought it knew exactly what it was doing, exactly what it was up to.
“Maybe some of them retain brain consciousness,” he offered.
“What does that mean?” She whispered hastily. She was getting upset. “They can still think?”
“Hush,” he pressed a finger to her lips. He knew she’d hate it, but she needed to stop talking so loudly. Mark didn’t want to die. He knew she didn’t, either. Not really. Alice had her moments, but Mark thought she wanted to live.
She just didn’t want to live in this world.
This shitty world.
This world where anything went.
“Sorry,” Alice whispered.
“I wonder if it can think a little bit. The others seem to react instinctually. They chase food and noise and smells, perhaps, but they don’t really know what they’re doing. I think this one does. I’ve seen a few of them.”
“I have, too.”
But why were they different? Why were these ones, these quiet ones, so different from the brainless Infected? Why were these zombies so much weirder?
Why the hell were they smart?
They still didn’t know what had caused the infection in the first place. Alice had a bunch of stupid ideas. Mark liked her well enough. Hell, he liked her a lot, but he thought her theories were all a little bit ridiculous and stemmed from paranoia.
To be honest, it didn’t really matter how things had begun. What mattered was where they went from here. The world was dead, but Mark and Alice were alive. He hoped Kyle and Torrance were, too. Kyle thought he was a huge geek, and he was, but he was scrappy, too. He was creative.
Mark thought Kyle was going to be fine, no matter where he was.
He just hoped Kyle and Torrance had gotten out of the building. Mark knew half of the zombies had chased after him and Alice, but he knew a lot of them had stayed behind. They’d probably torn the front door of the building off the way they had destroyed the house here.
“Mark,” Alice whispered. “When we get out of here, we need to go back to the library. We need to board up the door and get a ladder. Then if they come, we can climb out the back and escape into the woods.”
The library was a solid bet. The first floor was nearly impenetrable. He didn’t anything would be able to break into the first floor, but what if the zombies never left the city offices? What if they never left the building Kyle and Torrance had been in?
Did they really have the ammunition and the willpower to clear out that many Infected?
He hated the idea that the library was a bust. He hated the idea that they would have to find somewhere else to hide. He hated they were sitting in a fucking shed while they listened to monsters only twenty yards away.
“One thing at a time, Alice.”
“But we need to think about what we’re going to do next, where we’re going to go.”
“If we get out of here alive, we’ll go to the library, but we have to be careful. Alice, if we get separated, we’ll meet back there, but we can’t lead the horde to our home.”
“I know.”
They stopped talking and just sat there. He leaned against the back of the shed and closed his eyes. Mark was more tired than he’d been in a long time.
“It’s going to be okay,” Alice’s voice was a whisper. They really should stop talking, but they were quiet, and their whispers had so far gone unnoticed.
“I don’t know if that’s true anymore.”
“We have to believe it’s going to be all right.”
“Or what? Monsters will get us?”
“Funny,” Alice said, but he could tell she didn’t think it was funny. “You know, when I was a kid, my brother and I used to hide in the backyard all the time.”
“Are you telling me the shed is bringing back some fond memories?”
“No,” Alice said. “We didn’t hide in a shed. We hid in the doghouse.”
“You’re kidding me.”
“I’m not,” Alice insisted. She laughed quietly. Very quietly. “Once, we went out to play and my mother didn’t know about our hiding place. She looked for us for half an hour before she finally found us hiding in the doghouse with our black lab and all of her puppies.”
“How many puppies are we talking about?” He pictured Alice as a little girl with pigtails and a goofy grin squeezed into the back of a doghouse with a couple of tiny little black labs.
&
nbsp; “Ten,” she admitted. “To be honest, I have no idea how we all fit in there for so long.”
“You’re lucky you remembered how to act like a human,” Mark said solemnly. “After so much time among the canines, I’m a bit surprised you didn’t turn into a dog, or at least a werewolf.”
“Come on,” she slapped his shoulder gently. “It was silly.”
“Yes,” he said. “It was silly.”
He couldn’t see her face anymore. It was too dark now, but he reached for her and touched her cheek. Alice sucked in a breath and Mark kissed her. Gently. Softly. They couldn’t move much or at all in the tiny shed, but he could offer her a little bit of comfort.
He could let her know he was here.
He kissed Alice like it was the last time because part of Mark thought it was.
Chapter 7
They were in the center of the lake before Kyle dared to look back where they’d come from. He could see better out here with the moon shining bright. He could see the building.
“They’re coming out of the basement now,” he said. “That didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would.”
“They’re getting smarter,” Torrance muttered under her breath, and Kyle didn’t disagree.
“I thought they were completely void of rational thought, but now I’m not so sure.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “I kind of figured they’d wander around the building bumping into things until they accidentally found their way back out. It doesn’t seem that way anymore, does it?”
“Are they evolving? Or did we just get the stupid ones before?”
She shrugged, and Kyle kept paddling. He was glad the zombies couldn’t swim. At least, they couldn’t swim yet. Who knew what they’d be able to do in a few weeks or a few months? Who knew what they’d be able to do in a few years?
He didn’t want to think about the monsters getting organized. He didn’t want to think about the fact that they could make survival a whole lot harder than it already was. The Infected had every advantage and he and his friends had none.
Humans were slower, weaker.
Humans had to use weapons to fight.
The monsters, on the other hand, could spit at you and kill you. They could bring you to their side without much of a fight at all. They were slow, sometimes, but they were stronger. They lasted longer.
A broken arm for a human could end a fight completely.
A broken arm for a zombie was just another day.
The canoe glided across the water almost completely silently. The only sound was the occasional dip of their paddles into the water.
“Up ahead,” Torrance pointed to where the lake curved slightly. There was a little beach and a dozen yards or so from the edge of the shore was a cabin. There were more in the woods. He could see three others peeking out between trees. He never would have thought to wander over here and suddenly, he was glad Torrance knew her way around Raven.
They stopped the canoe. Kyle got out first and pulled it up on shore enough that Torrance could climb out, too, then they flipped it on its side and stored the paddles underneath. They each held their crowbars in their hands. Torrance hiked her backpack higher on her back and looked at the cabin. She looked fierce, determined. Brave.
Kyle liked this side of her. She didn’t seem so lonely or timid. She seemed badass. This was her element and he couldn’t wait to see what she would do.
“What do you think?” She asked.
“About what?”
“Stay in this one tonight, then try to find something better tomorrow?”
“That’s fine.” He didn’t want to wander in the woods any more than she did. The moon was bright, but Kyle didn’t want to try to fight monsters in the shadows of the forest.
Torrance walked up to the cabin and tried the door, but it didn’t budge. She groaned.
“I really don’t want to break a window,” she said.
“I’m guessing there’s no chance of a hide-a-key around here?”
“No,” she said. “The keys are all in the lodge, which is further in the forest.”
“We could go,” he said, but she shook her head.
“Not tonight. Tonight let’s risk it. Let’s break the damn window. We can block it off once we’re inside.”
“Give me your shirt,” Kyle said.
“Excuse me?”
“For the glass. Unless you want me to use my boxers,” he said, teasing her. He shouldn’t be pushing her. They were both tired and worn out and just wanted to crash, but he really didn’t want to give up his last piece of clothing.
Torrance glared and took her shirt off, handed it to him.
Kyle did his best to keep his eyes on hers and accepted the top from her.
Then it was go time.
He hit the glass with his crowbar and it shattered. The sound seemed to echo over the lake. The sound seemed to carry. They both paused, hesitated, and listened.
Nothing happened.
Kyle half-expected zombies to come crawling out of the lake and the woods. He half-expected them to jump off the roof at him, to tackle him, but they didn’t.
“It’s okay,” Torrance put her hand on his shoulder. “Let’s get inside, okay? We’re all right. Everything is all right.”
He wrapped his hand in the shirt and used it to clear the glass from the bottom half of the window pane. He hadn’t broken the entire window: only the bottom half. Then Kyle slipped his hand inside and unlocked the window. He wasn’t sure if saving part of the window would make any difference in the long run, but for now, it would offer at least a small added amount of protection.
Maybe.
Once the window was unlocked, he pushed the window up and open so they could crawl through. The frame stuck for just a second: a side-effect from years of not being used. How long had it been since anyone stayed in this cabin? He was curious. Once the window was up, Kyle wiped the rest of the glass from the frame, then climbed inside.
He landed upright in the cabin. The wooden planks seemed to shake for just a second, but then nothing. They were fine. He was fine. Everything was going to be okay.
“It’s empty,” he called to Torrance, but she was already climbing in the window. She stepped in beside him and he turned to her. “Empty,” he repeated.
“Good,” she fished her flashlight out of her bag and shined it around the room. There were a couple of dusty cots resting against one wall, a miniature kitchen area with countertops and a table and chairs. There was a closet. Maybe there was food, water in there. That might be hoping too much.
Kyle always hoped too much.
He reached for the cots and pulled two of them down. They were dusty, but they were better than sleeping on the floor. Torrance sat down on one of the cots and opened her backpack.
She pulled out duct tape, water bottles, and granola bars.
“Give me the tape,” Kyle said, and she tossed it to him. He went over to the window and took the shirt he’d use to clean up the glass. He held it out of the window and shook it so the shards of glass fell outside the cabin, then he spread it over the empty half of the window and taped it firmly in place.
“Nicely done,” Torrance said, admiring his work.
“It won’t keep anything out but rain,” he said.
“I prefer to be dry when I sleep,” Torrance said, and opened a water bottle. She offered one to Kyle and he took it. He sat down on the other cot and sipped the water. He hadn’t realized how thirsty he was until now and he was glad she’d thought clearly enough to grab her backpack.
He finished his drink, careful to save half of the bottle, and set it down beside the cot. Then Kyle got up and paced around the room. He wanted to shut his mind off, wanted to find some way to calm down. All he could think was that the zombies were going to find them here. They were going to come and they were going to find them and they were going to be screwed.
So screwed.
“Hey,” Torrance placed her hand on his shoulder. “Sit down,
okay? There’s nothing else we can do tonight.”
“Yeah,” Kyle said. “You’re right. Wait.” He went and grabbed one of the chairs and wedged it under the door handle. It wasn’t much, but just that simple act made him feel a little better, like he’d done something right. Like he’d made a tiny bit of difference.
He laid down on the cot and closed his eyes. Torrance did the same. Soon he could hear the gentle sounds of her snoring, but Kyle was awake for a very, very long time.
Chapter 8
Torrance woke up before Kyle and started searching the cabin. She hadn’t looked around much in the dark the night before; she had just taken a quick glance around. She was tired and worn out. Sleeping on a hard camping cot felt amazing. It was much better than the little nest she’d made herself in the office.
She opened the little closet and was happy the door didn’t creak. There was a broom inside and a mop, but not much else. Pity. It would have been nice to get a break, would have been nice to find some dried food or cans of corn or anything, really.
A real weapon.
That would be nice.
She closed the door and looked at Kyle. He was curled up in a ball on the cot. She wished she had a blanket to offer him or anything at all. He couldn’t have been comfortable in those damn boxers. Poor guy. She felt bad for him, but she felt bad for herself, too. She was down to jeans and she was cold.
Today they’d have to find more clothes.
Today they’d have to come up with a plan.
She peeked out the window, but didn’t see anything outside. She had to pee, and she didn’t want to wake Kyle up. Torrance moved the chair and unlocked the door. She picked up her crowbar and stepped outside in the early morning light.
It was normal.
She even heard a bird.
She looked around anxiously, glanced back over her shoulder. Kyle was still sound asleep. She stepped out of the cabin and closed the door carefully behind herself, then headed to one of the trees to do her business.
Just Another Day in the Zombie Apocalypse (Episode 5) Page 3
