by TW Brown
Maybe it was just really hungry. After all, what could it possibly have been able to eat while it had been trapped…
That thought died in my mind as my gaze went to that shredded cheek of the female veterinarian. I cocked my head as I considered it and then quickly shook it when I realized that I was mimicking the study pose of the creepy zombie children.
“Maybe you just need a more palatable option,” I said to the cat as it gulped down the piece of meat it had managed to tear free with its tiny, sharp teeth.
I grabbed a bag of the cat food from the display beside the dog food and unceremoniously ripped the bag open, letting the dry kibble pour out on the floor in a rush. The cat paused, another strip of neck skin in its mouth. Its eyes flicked to the dry food all over the floor…and then returned to tugging at the piece of meat in its teeth.
“Suit yourself,” I said with a shiver.
I didn’t have any more time to fool around with this cat. I looked outside and saw the Jeep Cherokee just as it went into a spin and did a series of donuts in an open section of the parking lot, blue smoke pouring from the tires.
I had a pang of regret that I wouldn’t be able to get to know this Ariel better. She seemed like a great gal. Shaking off the melancholy before it could sink its grips into me, I started shoving everything out the busted square in the front door that I’d entered. I had to push the bags of dog food with my legs, but I didn’t mind.
I chanced one more look back at the cat and then climbed through myself. Standing out on the sidewalk, the sun suddenly looked brighter. The air smelled cleaner.
And I was out in the open.
That fact became clear when the three zombies rounded the corner of the building and began to shamble my direction. I realized in that moment that I’d never made any sort of arrangement for a signal to get Ariel’s attention. I did the only thing that I could think of. I pulled my Glock 21 and dropped all three zombies in relatively rapid succession. The second one took the bullet in the face, but kept coming, and I had to adjust for a shot that smashed into the forehead and exploded out the back in a dark spray of chunky gore.
I looked over my shoulder and saw the Jeep Cherokee weaving through the lot and right for me. It braked hard and skidded sideways with a squeal of rubber.
“What the hell took you so long?” Ariel yelped as she jumped out of the vehicle after popping the rear hatch. I was actually surprised when she started grabbing my haul and throwing it all into the rear cargo area alongside me.
“Besides the undead veterinarian and the three zombie canines?” I replied with a grunt as I scooped up a bag of the dry food over one shoulder and then collected a pair of the heavy totes.
“Zombie dogs?” Ariel came to a sudden stop. She looked at me as if she waited for me to tell her I was only kidding.
“Three of them.” I dropped my load into the Jeep and nodded for her to get in as I rushed around to the open driver’s side door.
We both pulled our doors shut and I hit the gas just as the harried undead that had been engaged in the fruitless chase around the lot were almost on us. With a jerk on the wheel, I veered left and then made my way for the main street that ran along the front of this shopping center.
I was just turning right to speed off down Southeast Sunnyside Road when two people sprinted out into the street from the bushes across the way where the charred remains of a Taco Bell once stood. For some reason, I had a sudden craving, which is funny, because I’d never really liked that particular fast food chain in the past.
I was seriously considering just speeding off and leaving the two people behind when something made me slam on the brakes. Ariel hadn’t put on her seatbelt, and certainly had not anticipated the sudden stop. She was thrown into the dash hard and made an audible grunt of pain.
“What are you doing?” she managed as she struggled to inhale.
“That woman is pregnant.”
“Did you learn nothing from picking me up?” she grumbled as I hit the button to unlock all the doors.
“So you are saying that I should just leave them behind?”
I watched anxiously as the pair hurried over to where I’d stopped. As I took those few seconds to see everything a bit more clearly, I realized that the man was moving fast, but the woman had a limp to go along with her pregnancy. Her right leg had a strip of bloody cloth wrapped around it just below the knee. He had an arm around her waist and was almost carrying her as they scrambled across the divider between the north and southbound lanes of the road.
Coming through the row of tall hedges where they’d emerged were perhaps dozens of the walking dead. In fact, just as the couple reached the Jeep, one section of the hedgerow folded down as zombies appeared to be almost vomited out onto the road.
The man was tall and slim, his dark skin reflecting the sun with the added boost of the sheen of sweat that coated his face. His head was clean shaven, which was impressive considering that we were weeks into the zombie apocalypse now, and things like shaving had become a bit of a luxury. He was wearing jeans, a very worn and heavily stained tee-shirt, and high-top basketball shoes. Not what I would consider your typical post-apocalyptic apparel.
The woman looked to be of Asian heritage, but not exactly. She had a slight tilt to her eyes, and jet back hair that actually looked to have been sawed off around shoulder-length versus having been cut. She barely came up to the man’s armpits and her petite frame probably made it a much easier task for the man to be practically carrying her at the speed they were moving. Her skin tone was very pale, but I didn’t know if that was her natural pallor, or if perhaps she was showing the effects of blood loss from that leg injury.
The door flew open and the man practically threw the woman inside before jumping behind her and slamming the door shut behind them. By now, this newly arriving mob of the walking dead were just reaching the raised divider between the lanes.
“Everybody hang on,” I called, and then floored it.
While not terribly impressive, the big SUV lurched forward and then began the steady acceleration. I knew this area, and I also knew the best way to get to where Carl and the others were staying. As the zombies vanished in the rearview mirror, and we topped the steady and gradual incline in this section of Sunnyside Road, I breathed a sigh of relief.
I was almost ready to allow myself to believe that I would make this happen. Okay, so I hadn’t managed to gather a bunch of supplies for the humans, but my dear Newfie would be taken care of, and that had been my real priority. Also, I was perhaps about to deliver something to Carl and Betty that was better than supplies: people.
“Look, I wanna thank you for stopping.” The man leaned forward, his hand reaching over into the front seat. I reached back and shook it despite the awkwardness of the position. I think I saw Ariel tense up as I did so. “My name is Franklin Murphy, and this here is Joan Kioki.”
“Evan Berry, and this is Ariel Mannheim,” I replied as we barreled along past residential neighborhoods, apartment complexes, and small shopping malls.
I looked up in the rearview mirror and my foot slipped off the gas pedal. I blinked twice to be certain, and once I was, I felt sick.
“How long ago were you bit, Joan?” I asked, doing my best to keep my voice even. I didn’t want to sound freaked out or like she was in any danger from me. I wasn’t entirely sure how to make that happen with my voice, but I was making a point to sound as calm as possible.
“L-l-last night,” she answered.
“It was my fault,” Franklin blurted. “I was supposed to be on lookout. I had to piss really bad. I just slipped out for a second…” His words had come out in a hurry at first, then slowed as he laid out his guilt.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Joan insisted.
“I left the door open,” Franklin almost wailed. He had a low voice that sounded strange emoting such sorrow.
There was a long silence. Ariel was staring at me, and I saw something in her eyes that I couldn’t read. I
was almost certain that she was trying to will me to say something. There was only one thing I could think of that might be relevant to this conversation.
“I was scratched a couple of days ago,” I admitted.
The odd thing was how I was losing track of time. I could no longer pinpoint the exact period that I’d been infected. Was it two days? Three? I was puzzling over it when Joan interrupted my inner musings.
“So what are you doing out here just rolling around? And what was all that nonsense in the parking lot?” She paused for a moment and then added, “That is how we found you guys…all that racket with the horn and the screeching tires.”
I explained about the injuries to my dog and how I was out to gather her some much-needed supplies. I told them about how I was now taking this Jeep to their gates and leaving it there. I told them about Carl, Betty, the new girl, and the kids, as well as how the house was a pretty good spot to ride this thing out as far as locations went.
“If you want, you and Ariel could probably stay there,” I offered. “Joan, you and I can drop them off and then I will leave with you. We can ride this out together.”
There was only a moment’s pause before she said, “I would like that.”
6
Monsters
“What now?” I gasped as we came around a gentle bend in the road.
Many of the books and movies about the whole zombie thing tried to capture what the creators thought might be terrifying. Sometimes I would see or read a scene and think, That’s a bit over the top. What I saw ahead would have garnered just that sort of response.
The entirety of Sunnyside Road was barricaded in a manner of speaking. Bodies were stacked at least three feet high all the way across what amounted to several lanes. There were left and right turn lanes on each side, as well as the two lanes going north and the two for heading south. In addition, there were bike lanes on each side and then sidewalks bordering it all.
The way was blocked by the wall of bodies. I could not wrap my mind around who or what would do something like this. We could turn around and try to find our way using the back streets, but I was so shocked by what I was seeing that I just sat there with the vehicle idling. We were on just enough of an incline that the Jeep did not roll forward of its own volition, and so we were all still sitting there when I heard the dull pop sound.
My eyes flicked to the hole that had just appeared in the windshield at the same time everybody else figured out what was happening. The vehicle erupted in shouts as all three passengers started hollering or screaming about how we needed to get out of here.
I shifted into reverse and stomped the gas. As we began to gain momentum, picking up speed as we raced backwards on the downhill slope, two more holes appeared in the windshield.
“Hang on!” I yelled above the other screams as I stomped on the brakes and turned the wheel hard to put us into what I hoped was a bit of a spin.
It wasn’t a full hundred and eighty degrees, but it was most of it, and I changed to the accelerator and now had my foot pressed to the floor on that pedal as I corrected enough to bring us around the rest of the way. We had a bit of a hill going down and then another easy slope headed up. I just wanted us up and over that ridge as soon as possible to put whatever the hell was going on behind us as far away as I could manage.
“Anybody hit?” I called out.
“No,” Ariel answered first.
“Nope,” Franklin said next.
“Not me,” Joan added, and she almost sounded disappointed. We could deal with that later, right this moment—
The Jeep jerked wildly to the left and we were now rocketing towards the curb. Before I could correct, we bounced up onto the sidewalk and then slammed into a tall streetlight post with a big, circular concrete base.
I heard the airbags go off…and then everything went black.
***
The sounds that filtered into my consciousness were muffled at first. I thought I heard screaming, then it sounded like laughing. It took me a few minutes to realize that it was both. When I tried to open my eyes, things appeared to be a bit fuzzy. At first I thought that I was maybe seeing through gauze or perhaps a very thin blindfold.
“Looks like another one of them is awake,” a voice said from just to my left.
“So, that’s the last of ‘em?” a female voice asked.
“The last one that matters,” came the cryptic reply.
“Go tell Don they all survived,” the female’s voice said, and it was with a tone of authority, but there was something in the way she said the word “they” that had me on edge. There was a meaning behind it, I could tell by the way she emphasized it. “See if he wants any of them brought in.”
“Sure thing, boss,” the male voice said, and then I heard a door open and shut.
I was trying to look around, but my head wouldn’t move. It actually took me a bit to realize that it was held in place by some sort of strap or band around my forehead. Also, I was in the upright position, standing with my legs wide. A bit of deductive reasoning told me that I was strapped to something that was ‘X’ shaped. My feet were on small ledges, but I was a good six or so inches off the floor and there was a single beam that split the ‘X’ up the middle which dug uncomfortably into my back, but at least gave my head a place to rest.
With what little that I could see of the room, it seemed to be a classroom. I didn’t see any desks, but there was a large Dry-Erase board directly in front of me and an old file cabinet. The way the shadows danced across the wall in front of me, I could tell there were windows behind me and that it was still daytime. I was guessing that I was seeing the shadows of trees blowing in the breeze.
I heard what sounded like a chair scooting across the floor, and then the distinct sound of boots or heavy shoes on the tiled floor. A moment later, a hazy figure stood before me. I felt a hand cup my chin and lift my head up.
“You look like shit,” the female voice I’d heard earlier said.
Now I was realizing that I wasn’t blindfolded or anything of that nature. Apparently, my eyes were just extremely swollen. I was beginning to waken more completely, and that is when I began to feel pain. It was centered in my face, but my ribs felt like they’d gone ten rounds on the losing end of a cage fight. Also, I could not breathe very well. In fact, I was breathing solely through my mouth at the moment.
“I am guessing you have a busted nose, maybe a few cracked ribs. Your arm came through surprisingly well considering it appears to have been injured prior to the wreck.”
When she stepped into view, she was nothing like her voice. In fact, I almost started laughing. It reminded me of that classic Aerosmith video when the guy thinks he is on the phone with this hot chick…and she is shown with a kid on one hip, cigarette dangling from her lips as she stirs something on the stove, and is easily over three hundred pounds. It is all topped off with a face that was beaten by a forest of ugly sticks.
I’d heard this woman talk, and already pictured what I would see. Especially when the guy she’d been talking to referred to her as ‘boss’ before he left. The thing is, this woman had sounded like she might be some sort of longshoreman.
She was maybe five feet tall. If she weighted ninety pounds, I would guess that she had a few rocks in her pockets. Her blonde hair was actually styled fashionably and her blue eyes were shiny. She looked and smelled amazing, particularly in contrast to me who hadn’t shaved in a few weeks, had hair that was greasy and matted down, and probably smelled like the north end of a southbound moose.
As soon as I realized that her smell registered, I felt my heart skip a beat. Was that the start of my spiral into undeath? The living would start to smell good?
Then I realized that she simply smelled good…not tasty.
As she came into focus a bit more clearly, I saw what might be the cause for her rough voice. She had a nasty scar across her throat. It looked horrible; but it also looked old, so it had nothing to do with the zombie apocalypse.
“You got a name?” the woman asked as she grabbed a chair and pulled it around to sit in front of me.
I tried to speak, but my mouth was dry, and only a rasping sound came out. I tried to swallow, but not much was happening.
The woman stood up and pulled a canteen from her shoulder, stepping onto a stack of pallets in front of my stanchion. “Open your mouth,” she said. I was confused, and it must’ve shown on my face. “You don’t seriously think that I will let your mouth touch my canteen, do you?”
She had a good point.
I opened my mouth and let her pour in a trickle. It was just enough to clear away the grit. It hardly came close to quenching my thirst, but at least it was something.
“Name?” the woman insisted, sounding more like a bored receptionist than some sort of evil captor.
“Evan Berry.” I didn’t see how it could hurt to at least answer the most basic of questions.
“And what is your relation to the people that you were brought in with?”
I noticed that she avoided or simply chose not to use the word “captured” in describing the situation. Of course, this contraption that I was lashed to told a much different story.
“And you?” I tried, not expecting a response. “What is your name?”
“Natasha Petrov,” she answered without hesitation. The reply caught me by complete surprise and I just hung there with my mouth open until she looked up at me and cocked an eyebrow of visible disapproval.
“Now, I will ask you again, what is your relation to the people you were found with?”
“Just survivors that I ran across.”
“And…” She glanced down at the clipboard in her hand, but I think it was more perfunctory than anything else, I had a feeling that she knew exactly what she was doing and what she planned to ask. “You were carrying a great deal of medical supplies. If not for a few of the things we catalogued, I would’ve guessed that you raided a medical center, but I am told that it is apparent that you raided a veterinary clinic? Since no animal was found, is it safe to guess that you were transporting all of that stuff to someplace specific?”
