Odium (The Dead Saga.)

by Riley, Claire C

  We pick two cars that we like from our vantage point and work out a strategy of getting to them.

  “Just press the fob and see what happens.” Mikey reaches for the fob in JD’s hand.

  “Don’t be an idiot. As soon as anything out there moves or makes a sound, those—what do you call them, Nina?”

  “Deaders.”

  “Those deaders are going to be all over the car.”

  “Okay, so set off a car alarm to one of the other cars, one on the other side of the lot, and distract them.” Mikey roots through the pile, pulls out a key, and examines the cars in the lot.

  “Wait.” My mind stumbles over a thought. “What if the noise attracts the attention of all the deaders in the area? I mean, what if they all freaking come? That sign last night said twenty-something thousand. I bet every one of those people are dead, or—deader. Or maybe we do get out to the cars in time, but think about this: we don’t know if they even have gas in them, right?” The two men stare at me in silence. “What? Did I say something stupid again?”

  “No, you’re actually right.”

  I can’t help be feel a shiny little glow of pride.

  “Okay, so…?” I prompt.

  “We need to find the workshop. If they have a workshop, then they might have some jiffy cans of gas in there. We get some gas, re-group, distract the deaders, and make a run for it.” JD, for the first time since I’ve known him, seems unsure. “Right?”

  I look at Mikey, who painfully ignores my stare, but replies to JD all the same.

  “Sounds about right. Let’s do this.”

  We all stand and move to the back of the showroom again. There’s a door marked EMPLOYEE BREAKROOM, and we push it open. It leads to a long corridor with several doors on either side. JD flips the switch and we all blink as most of the long tubes flare to life above us. The corridor is painted in a light green, which Mikey seems disgusted with.

  “What’s got your panties in a bunch?” I dare to speak and try to patch up our differences.

  Mikey still refuses to look at me, but surprisingly replies. “I hate the color green. It reminds me of my mother’s pea soup that she used to force me to eat as a kid.”

  I snort out a laugh. “Mother issues, figures.”

  He finally looks at me. “I do not have mother issues. Her pea soup was my fucking issue, if you must know.”

  I hold my hands up. “Okay, sorry.” I’m silent a beat before I continue. “It’s been proven that green is a calming color, you know.”

  He raises an eyebrow at me.

  “I’m serious,” I laugh.

  JD joins in the conversation, much to the exasperation of Mikey, who’s still trying to be pissed off. “She’s right. There was a study done on how color affects your mood, and they found that green—a particular shade, anyway—had a calming and therapeutic effect on people.”

  I snigger, but can’t hide the surprised expression on my face from the fact that that JD knows this stuff too. I decide to drop the topic, since I’m only poking the flames of Mikey’s annoyance with me. There’s a framed map on the wall showing the showroom and all the other parts of the car lot. We find our bearings, which really isn’t difficult, and head off in the direction of the workshop.

  “So what about other colors?” Mikey asks after a couple of minutes, surprising both me and JD. JD turns to glower at us.

  “Excuse me?” I smirk, playing dumb.

  “You know, like, what do other colors do?”

  JD huffs as he walks, clearly unimpressed with our unimportant conversation about paint colors and not ‘saving our asses,’ but you know, sometimes you have to take a break from the serious things in life. Especially after my morbid conversation with Mikey earlier. I look at Mikey’s profile, and he turns to look at me too. His mouth quirks at the side as he tries to stop himself from smiling, and my stomach does a little flip. What the fuck is it with this guy? I can’t seem to shake him no matter what I do. We’re like magnets that are attracted to each other—we keep springing back, no matter how much I force us apart.

  “Um, well, purple colors have been said to help with OCD and other disorders. Orange is supposed to make people feel more self-worth and relieve feelings of self-pity—if I remember correctly anyway.” I shrug. “I can’t remember the rest.”

  “No way!” Mikey retorts. “All that from a color, huh?”

  “You two done?”

  I drag my eyes away from Mikey and look at JD.

  “Yeah, sorry. I was rambling, wasn’t I?” I shrug again apologetically.

  JD frowns at me. “This is it.” He gestures toward the door on our left and wiggles the handle. “It’s locked. Mikey, you’re up.”

  My heart rate picks up automatically. I don’t like locked doors. Locked doors have never boded well for my little group or me. I grip my machete tighter, wishing that Crunch were with us with all her mad fighting skills. Damn her. She’s like a super weapon. She can fight like an assassin and she’s like Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman—how can I compete with that?

  Mikey retrieves his little set of tools and begins to go to work on the door, actively avoiding touching the bloody handprint swiped down the middle of it. It takes longer than the previous night, but it’s still only a matter of minutes before he’s done. He stands back as JD steps forward, obviously wanting to take the lead on this, as usual. With a turn of the handle, the door swings open and we step into the gloom beyond.

  Actually it’s not very gloomy at all, since there are windows all along the top of the wall near the ceiling; but still you get the idea, right?

  The smell that hits us makes my stomach churn, and the foreboding feeling within me increases. I hate this part. I’m so used to deaders these days, the smell, the moaning, and yes—the fear. It never goes away, but I’m used to it being there, constantly nibbling away at my insides like some kind of stomach ulcer. However, this part—those few seconds before you see them—that’s the part I really hate. It’s like watching a horror movie: the music has changed and you know that shit is about to get serious, but it’s a matter of waiting for the scary thing to jump out and make you spill your popcorn.

  Well, it’s like this day in and day out for us, constantly waiting for something to happen, and when the smell of them hits me, it’s as if the music on my own little horror movie has taken a turn for the worse.

  I grind my jaw together and take a deep breath as we go inside. This is definitely the workshop, and from the looks of things, several cars were under repair at the time of the zombie uprising. Several mechanic zombies have spotted us and are slowly shambling toward us. I count three in total, but then another one peeks from around a doorway. Yes—peeks! That’s what it seems like anyway. He pops his head inside and then peeks back out again with a groan. His constant peek-hide-groan repetition is freaking me out. What the hell is wrong with him?

  JD has already sliced the head off one of the zombies, and Mikey is making short work with another. A deader in a surprisingly tidy-looking suit is making its way behind him. I jog over and slam my machete into the back of its skull, and it drops down to the floor. Mikey turns at the sound behind him and nearly misses his own deader making a grab for him. They scuffle, with Mikey attempting to pull the deader’s hands off his clothes as it tries to pull him toward its attractively decaying mouth.

  Mikey reaches back and punches it hard in the jaw. Its jaw slides loose from its joints and hangs from its face. It doesn’t stop to assess the damage that has been done, but continues to reach for him. At least with half its face hanging down, it doesn’t have the strength in its jaw to take a bite of him. Still, the fat black tongue that dangles from deep in its throat (and is now lapping like a puppy looking for its mama’s teat) is disgusting enough to make me want to vomit. Both hands are on Mikey’s clothes now, and Mikey drops his weapon and struggles to push the deader off him. I run behind the deader and grab the back of its blue overalls and pull as hard as I can. I hear a rip of clothing and Mike
y takes this opportunity to pull out of its grip. He reaches for his other weapon—my now sharp-as-fuck butcher knife—and slams it through the deader’s forehead without taking a breath. Splatter and brain matter spray around me, and I gasp and turn away with a grimace.

  “You have to see this,” JD shouts across to us.

  I let the heavy deader drop from my grasp, and we head over to where JD is standing while I wipe my sleeves across my face to clear the filth. The fat deader continues to peek out from the office and growl at us, but doesn’t make any attempt to come and get us; as we get closer, I can see why.

  Deader-dude number four was a huge, flabby guy, and he’s caught between a rock and a hard place. No really, he is. What I thought was an office is actually a tool-station-cum-work-area, and his body is pinned to the work surface by a large clamp holding his stomach in place and a filing cabinet pushed up against his back. He snaps at us, and tears at his own body to get free.

  “Jesus, that’s messed up.”

  “How is it even stuck there?” Mikey cranes his neck around the deader, jerking back when it reaches for him. “Shit!” He shudders and comes away.

  “His stomach.” JD assesses without looking, presumably having checked before.

  “What?” I grimace and try to look around the rotting zombie.

  The sound of ripping draws my attention. The deader, now more than just a little bit infuriated by his inability to move and eat us, has torn—yes, torn—his stomach out of the vice’s mouth. A decidedly disgusting splatter hits the floor, as rotted guts and other mushy black insides pile around its feet, and he makes a move for me. Fortunately, the cabinet holds in place just long enough for me to swipe the deader’s head away from his shoulders in one slice—okay, okay, maybe two.

  Thirty-One.

  “Nina!” Mikey grabs me by the shoulders and shoves me roughly to the side as the zombie’s snapping head passes by my face. I slam into the filing cabinet with a grimace.

  The head lands on the floor with a sickening thud and JD slams his boot into its face, crushing it below his heel until it collapses under the pressure and stops moving altogether.

  “You okay?” Mikey looks me over with concern and I shrug him off, feeling stupid and embarrassed.

  “Yes, get off, I’m fine.” I slip in the black guts on the floor, and grip his arm to steady myself. The smell wafts up to me and my gag reflex kicks in. “Urgh, who would do that to it? That’s seriously messed up.”

  “You should say thank you. He probably just saved that pretty face of yours,” JD snarks as I pass him.

  “Whatever.” I glare back. “Can we just get on with this?”

  Both men come out of the little tool shop and look around. We check under all the cars and around the back of everything to make sure that we are completely alone now. We don’t want any more surprises.

  As we’re searching, I come across rows of car batteries all hooked up to a weird wire system. I can’t figure it out, so move on to some cupboards with padlocks on them. I realize that my zombie-killing score is better than the guys’, and I can’t keep the satisfied grin from my face as I grab a hammer and smash the padlock off a cupboard.

  “What’s there to smile about?” Mikey calls out to me when I finish in my destruction.

  “Nothing.” I smirk again, and rummage through the tools inside. There’s nothing overly useful that I can see, so I move on to the next cupboard.

  “Must be something, from the looks of your grin.”

  “I was just thinking that I killed more of them than either of you two.” I pick my hammer back up and smash it down on the next lock until it comes apart.

  “You keeping score?” Mikey laughs with a shake of his head.

  “No, it’s just that you treat me like a little girl, acting like I can’t look after myself, and then I manage to prove you wrong and take two of them out to your one.” I turn to look at him, my grin back in place. “You could even say that it was three, since I had to rescue you from yours.”

  Mikey’s grin falters.

  “I’ve got an idea.” JD calls out before Mikey can reply to me.

  We head over to where JD’s standing, by some cars up high on a workstation. An entire engine looks to be beside it, and I have no idea where he could be going with this.

  “So I was thinking that these cars will have gas in them, maybe we could siphon it out and we’ve got what we came for, but then I spotted something else.” He smiles tightly. It might be the first smile I’ve ever seen on his face.

  “Well, don’t keep us hanging, man,” Mikey huffs.

  JD doesn’t answer us, but points. The aim of his finger rests upon a white van and a tow truck. These weren’t in for repairs. They were the company’s trucks, and therefore will be filled with lots of lovely gasoline. I almost want to cheer at our good fortune and pray that we’re right. We quickly head into the actual office, which is next-door to the little tool-station-cum-zombie-torture-chamber. The keys, the blessed fucking keys, are hanging on the wall. I think of Emily’s dad, always hanging his keys on the wall in case of an emergency, and wonder if he wasn’t as stupid as I first thought. Maybe he was actually onto something.

  Mikey climbs in the tow truck, but after a few moments he calls out to us.

  “It’s dead,” he grumbles.

  JD jumps in and tries the van. That one makes a soft whining noise but nothing else, and he eventually climbs out looking more pissed off than I previously thought possible.

  “This one’s dead too,” JD snaps. “New plan, I guess.”

  I turn and walk away to the batteries I had found in the corner of the garage, their wires winding around them like worms in a can.

  “Guys…”

  JD and Mikey come over, and I don’t even have to say anything else. JD puts his arm around my waist and hugs me close. “Sometimes you’re not a total pain in my ass, Nina.”

  I can’t help but blush and smile at his backhanded compliment.

  Half an hour later and Mikey and JD have swapped the batteries out of the vehicles for the new ones and they both climb in and try them. Both vehicles whine and then start up with a happy roar, which fills the enclosed space. Fucking energy-saving solar panels!

  Both men climb down from the vehicles with huge happy faces and I actually do a little cheer. There’s just no way to keep it inside me any longer. Both men laugh, and for once I don’t feel embarrassed, just thankful that I have them on my side.

  “Let’s get the others and get the fuck out of Dodge,” JD hollers, sounding almost cheery as he leaves the room.

  “Why can’t we stay here?” Emily whines at me.

  “It’s not safe here, Em. No place this big is, you know that; it’s Zombie 101.”

  She twirls around on the chair twice more before I stick my foot out to stop her. The twirling is making me nauseous.

  “But we have electricity, lights, a refrigerator! We could do so much here,” she whines at me again.

  “First off, we shouldn’t be using the lights if we can help it—it attracts the deaders—and secondly, I’ll refer to point one, where there are a shit ton of deaders everywhere.” I get down on my knees so I can catch her eye. “Emily, this place is crawling with them. In fact, this place is actually going to continue to attract deaders from everywhere. The lights and noise are what bring them, and unless we turn everything off, they’re just going to keep coming, therefore making your point about staying…pointless. We’re going, so let’s get our stuff together and get gone.” I stand back up.

  “What if I don’t come with you?” She raises an eyebrow at me, just daring me to take her on.

  “Don’t pull the rebellious teenager card with me. You are coming. I can’t make you, but JD and Mikey will. We’re sure as shit not leaving you here to die like the rest of this town.” I storm out of the room before she can argue with me any more.

  Britta is standing in the hallway, seemingly waiting for me to come out.

  “What�
�s up, Britta?” I continue down the hallway, with her falling into step beside me.

  “I just wanted to say thank you, really.”

  I stop and look at her, dragging her into a side room before anyone sees us. Turns out we’re in a janitor’s closet of some sort. Jackpot. There’s toilet paper, disinfectant, car polish, and lots of other things.

  “No problem, you don’t need to thank me.” I begin to root through all the items in a search for anything useful.

  “Yes, there is. She would have killed me if it came down to that.” Britta touches a hand to my shoulder to get my attention.

  “You’re right and wrong,” I say as I grab a bottle of what should be the pink liquid soap. I give it a shake but it’s completely solidified, so I put it back. “She wouldn’t have killed you as such, but if it came down to you or her, I’m pretty sure she would have tripped you and left you for dead.” I offer her a small shrug. “Sorry, that sounds harsh, but—“

  “No, I know that you’re right. Crunch will be your best friend until it comes to a choice between you or her, and then you’re, how do you say? Um…”

  “Toast?” I offer.

  “Toast?” She looks confused.

  “Yeah, you know, like, you’re toast—caput.”

  “Caput?” She looks even more confused. “I don’t understand that, but you would be dead. For that I am sure. I need to get strong and able to fight again, and quickly.”

  I nod. “Yes. Until then, stay close to me.”

  Before I can say or do anything else, though, Britta leans over and gives me a big hug. I try to resist, but, as the saying goes, resistance is futile, and I feel myself melt into the gesture. I don’t know what, if anything I could do to defend Britta against Crunch. Crunch is badass, and I’m…pfft, heck, I don’t know, determined? Yeah, real scary, right?