DEAD: Darkness Before Dawn

by Brown, TW

  “You think that noise will bring one of the gangs?” Heather had asked nobody in particular.

  “Everybody pedal faster!” Catie called after she glanced at Kevin and he had not said a word.

  They had crossed a bridge that was littered with military vehicles that had been stripped of anything and everything. It looked like there had been a formidable blockade here that had just simply been abandoned. There were no bodies, and nothing looked like it had suffered anything more than the damage of neglect.

  As they travelled, Catie began to keep an eye on Kevin. He had been acting peculiar ever since hearing the story of those three immune survivors. Try as she might, she could not puzzle together what in the world could have the man so shaken up. Yet, if he was all of a sudden hesitant and unresponsive, it was important that somebody take control.

  That evening, they came to the start of another neighborhood. This one, however, had not fared as well. Directly across from a rail yard, it had suffered a massive fire most likely back when all of this began. Now, all that remained were blackened skeletal remains of the buildings for a good distance. That allowed them a better view of their surroundings, but it also left them somewhat vulnerable.

  Eventually, a large brick building was spotted that seemed to be on the fringe of where the fire had burned out. The sign out front was barely readable, but the name could still be made out.

  “R.H. Lawrence Junior…School for Mathematics and Science,” Rose read as she scratched her head and turned to Heather. “They have schools just for math and science?”

  “Not on any planet I would want to be from,” Heather said with a laugh.

  “That would be like Heaven for me,” the girl sighed. “Those were the only classes I liked. History was boring and full of dead people…and English? I speak it fine, I don’t need to know how to conjunctigate a verb or whatever it is you do to them.”

  “But you liked math and science?” Deanna chimed in as she pulled up beside them.

  “They made sense,” Rose said with a shrug. “Math is just a series of rules that, once you learn, never change.”

  “And when did you follow rules?” Sean quipped. Deanna gave him a sharp elbow to the ribs, but Catie noticed that it was more playful than intending actual harm.

  “I followed some.” Rose turned a defiant glare up at the boy and planted one hand firmly on her hip.

  The group all slowly came to a stop, gathered in front of the two-story brick façade and began to talk among themselves. Catie nudged Heather and pointed out Kevin who had stopped as well, but apart from the group.

  “What’s up with him?” Catie whispered as Aleah stopped beside her.

  “No idea,” Aleah said with a shrug. “I tried a few times to get him to talk and he just dismissed me…told me to keep my eyes on the road.”

  “He has been this way since those three people told their story,” Catie pointed out. “Any idea as to what they might have said that has him so rattled?”

  “He did have another friend who was immune,” Heather offered. “But he died a while ago so I don’t know.”

  The women all looked at each other to see if the other had the answer. One by one, they each shook their head.

  “Well whatever is bugging him, we need to keep an eye open for a bit. I think it is on us to keep things together for the time being,” Catie whispered so that the children could not overhear.

  “Agreed,” Heather and Aleah said in unison.

  “Okay, we need to take a look inside,” Catie turned and announced to the children gathered together on the sidewalk. “I am going in with Sean and Heather. Everybody else keep watch.”

  The trio headed for the main doors of the school. It looked like it had been boarded up at one time, but whoever had done so had left in a hurry. The main doors were open…a corpse just inside had rotted to the point of almost melding with the linoleum floor.

  “I don’t know if that is a good sign or a bad one,” Heather whispered.

  “It ain’t trying to eat us,” Sean spoke up, “so I am gonna go with good…for now.”

  As they made their way in, the shadows were almost impenetrable. The building was made even darker by the fact that the ground floor windows had been boarded up. Holding up her Coleman lantern, Catie shined the light down each direction of the main corridor; nothing stirred.

  “It looks like every door has been boarded up from this side,” Catie said. “Let’s check them to make sure they are secure.”

  “Shouldn’t we take a look inside one?” Heather asked.

  “I hate to do this, but I am gonna have to refer to Kevin’s line about this not being the movies. If it were, then we would open one and zombies would rush out and eat us…or…we would leave it and despite the doors having held all this time, one of them would magically fail for no real reason and zombies would get us in our sleep.” Catie held up the lantern so they could see the closest door. “Whoever did that did a good job. I say we move on upstairs and see how it looks.”

  There were no objections and so she led the way up the stairs. At the landing between the first and second floors, she stopped abruptly causing the two behind her to run into her back.

  “What?” Heather peeked over Catie’s shoulders.

  “I think we can make camp here with no worries,” Catie said. She held up the lantern to illuminate the top of the stairs more clearly.

  “Nice,” Sean breathed appreciatively.

  ***

  “Is he sick?” Rose whispered, nudging Aleah and nodding to Kevin who had climbed off his bike and was now sitting on the curb beside his bicycle.

  “No…” Aleah answered, but her voice trailed off with uncertainty.

  “Well he sure is acting funny.”

  “Yeah…well he has been the glue holding us together for so long, maybe he just needs some time. After all, he was in a coma for over two weeks.”

  “You changed his underpants while he was sleeping. Didn’t that make you want to be sick?” Rose asked, looking up at Aleah with genuine curiosity.

  “They weren’t my favorite moments, but he needed taking care of.”

  “You love him,” the girl sang with a huge smile.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  “Do you kiss him?”

  “Sometimes.”

  “Do you do other things?”

  The word “other” was drawn out far too long and Aleah wondered what sort of life this little girl who could not be older than eleven or twelve had to have lived for that question to even be asked.

  “None of your business,” Aleah answered, but her hand went to her belly. She was going to have to spill the beans pretty soon. It had been a while since her last period and she was starting to dispel the notion that it was just her body out of whack.

  “How did you meet him?”

  That was a subject that Aleah was far more comfortable sharing. She told the story, backing up to a week or two before. She had been out on her own for a while and was very proud of how she had handled herself. For some reason, she wanted to be a positive role model for this little girl.

  Kevin heard the two talking, but he was not really paying attention to them. His mind was spiraling into depression and, try as he might, he could not break free.

  He looked around. Everybody was sort of loosely gathered, but nobody was really paying him any attention. His head craned back about a block away in the direction they had come. Taking another look to ensure he was not being observed, he got up and just ambled off. He would only be gone for a minute or five. Actually, he was not holding out much hope, considering the neighborhood.

  He kept looking over his shoulder to see if he was noticed, but everybody was busy horsing around. In fact, he was a little concerned at how little they were paying attention. If he could slip away, then it was quite possible that zombies could sneak up and catch them unaware.

  “I will deal with that when I get back,” he mumbled as he stopped in front of the nondescript stone bui
lding. The sign that was clinging by a wire had the unoriginal name “Pete’s Liquor Store” in faded red script still visible.

  The door was barely still attached by the hinges, and he had to be careful when he opened it so that it would not fall in. It was not that he was worried about any zombies, he was more concerned that Aleah or some of the kids might see or hear.

  The tiny shop was little more than three aisles made up of shelves and a set of wall-mounted shelving around the perimeter. The cash register was against the back wall. Judging by the neighborhood that still remained, he imagined that this place had been held up once or twice; the register placement was probably intentional to allow the mysterious “Pete” to see any who entered before they came through the door.

  As he figured, the shelves were practically bare. Most of what remained were sugary mixers like piña colada and strawberry daiquiri. As he snooped around, he discovered a single hidden gem. Of all places, it was behind the counter stuffed back behind some old moldy rags.

  “Pete, you old devil, you,” Kevin said with a sigh as he unscrewed the top of the half empty bottle of bourbon. “Cheers.” He took a big swallow and felt the amber liquid burn its way down his throat, hit his belly, and send out tendrils of warmth.

  Slipping down the wall to sit on the floor, he took another drink. His eyes spied two more bottles on the bottom shelf! It looked like Pete kept his own stash and looters who had grabbed everything obvious and even emptied the register had not bothered to look under the cashier’s counter. Kevin also spied a baseball bat and a shotgun. It seemed Pete had not made it back to his shop after all hell broke loose, otherwise the sawed off street sweeper would have most likely been gone…even if he had left behind the booze.

  Kevin pulled the other two bottles from their little cubby and sat them on the floor between his legs. Now that he knew there was more, he polished off the rest of the bottle in his hand in a long pull.

  The warmth was spreading through his body now and his head was starting to swim with a sensation that he was not sure he found pleasant. His intellectual side screamed that alcohol was absolutely the wrong answer. Besides the fact that it was a depressant, it also hampered his reaction ability. How many idiots had he, Mike, Cary, and Darrin made fun of while watching some zombie movie or other horror offering when drugs and alcohol made their appearance. Much like sex, those who used drugs and alcohol usually met a terrible demise.

  “Yesh,” Kevin said, noticing the slight slur to his speech, “well thish ain’t the movies.”

  Twisting the top off the second bottle, he took another drink. The heat was not as noticeable this time.

  His thoughts now locked on to what he had heard from those three pathetic individuals that had shared their miserable story. Sure, some might think that it was a blessing to be immune. But now he was learning that, as in every other aspect of life as he knew it, nothing good ever came without a price.

  Granted, it still had not been proven without a shadow of a doubt that the illness he received from the cats was the same as that which was transferred by a zombie, but he was at least ninety percent certain. If that was indeed the case, that meant that, according to what those three people had shared, then he could pass on the infection to another person through sex…just like the AIDS virus.

  That meant that he could never again be intimate with Aleah. Sure, they might be able to use a condom (if they could find any...he had to admit that they had not been actively seeking any such thing so far), but that was still a roll of the dice. Like they used to say back in the day, “The only definite prevention is abstinence.”

  Taking another pull on the bottle, Kevin closed his eyes and let the self-pity wash over him like a vat of rancid oil. He made no attempt to find anything positive about his situation.

  “What in the hell are you doing!” a voice snapped, yanking him out of his slide into abject despair.

  Kevin opened his eyes to discover Deanna standing in the doorway. She had her hands on her hips and a look of disapproval carved into her face so deep that she momentarily transformed into his mother.

  “I asked you a question?” Deanna stepped into the looted liquor store and gave it a look of absolute disgust.

  “Nothing,” was his lame response.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be the smart one?” she asked as she stepped over a fallen display of a cardboard pirate. “This seems more than just a bit stupid to me.”

  “Oh yeah?” Kevin blurted, but that was the extent of his comeback. He searched his mind and found nothing more to add.

  “You have been like this since those people told their story.” Deanna came in the rest of the way and now stood directly over Kevin. “You want to tell somebody what crawled up your butt?”

  “The infection…virus…disease…whatever the hell it is that turns people into zombies…it is communicable like a venereal disease…or AIDS. You can get it through fluid exchange with an infected person just like you were bitten by a zombie,” he said, doing his best not to actually cry. It was difficult as he felt his throat tighten with each word.

  “So?” Deanna stared at him blankly for a minute, but then a look came across her face as she realized just why that might be a concern to Kevin. “You guys haven’t done anything since you woke up have you?”

  “What? No!” he exclaimed. He tried not to think of what would have happened had he not met those three people and heard their story.

  “Then what is wrong?”

  Kevin sat silently and stared at the bottle in his hand like he did not know how it had gotten there. He looked around for the top and plucked it from the floor, dusting it off before replacing it on the bottle.

  “Ohhh…” she said, letting that word draw out as a thought came. “Now you can’t!”

  Kevin looked up and felt his face grow hot with embarrassment. “I don’t want to talk about this,” he mumbled.

  “Look,” Deanna sat down beside him and took his hand, “I may not know much, but I know that Aleah really likes you. You are smart…you will figure something out, but right now, we have bigger problems. There are a bunch of kids out there treating this like it is a field trip. From what we were told, there are gangs all the way from here to freaking Elgin, and then toss in zombies just to round it all off.

  “We need you. While you were out, things just did not run well. There was a lot of fighting. That Catie is a control freak…and twice I had to stop her and Aleah from throwing down. Let’s get out of Chicago and then you can take a day to feel sorry for yourself or whatever it is that you so called adults do when you can’t have everything go your way.

  “You are the leader of this group. Nobody ever questions you when it comes down to the big decisions. And I bet if you talked to Aleah…she would probably say something to make you feel better.”

  Kevin cocked his head and looked at the girl beside him out of the corner of his eyes. He wondered briefly how a kid with so much together upstairs had ended up where he’d found her.

  “Help me up.”

  Deanna popped up and stuffed the gun he had failed to notice into its holster on her hip. She extended a hand to him and helped him to his feet.

  Kevin had to take a minute to allow the floor to stop tilting from side to side. He managed to take three steps before he jerked away and lunged back behind the counter where he proceeded to empty his stomach in a loud retching that made Deanna cover her mouth and fight back her own gag reflex.

  After a minute, Kevin stood and wiped his mouth with his shirt sleeve. Deanna found herself fighting another bout as she pointed to his nose where a ropy strand of chunky bile hung, swinging like a pendulum. Ducking back behind the cash register, he cleared each nostril and then wiped at his nose with his already fouled sleeve.

  “Better?” he asked, standing up and turning to face the girl who was now all the way to the door.

  “Barely,” she managed with an expression of disgust wrinkling her features.

  The two emerged on
to the street. Back up in front of the school, he saw Aleah and Rose both standing, searching the area with their hands shielding their eyes from the glare of the last rays of daylight.

  He waved weakly when it was obvious that Aleah spotted him. She did not wave back, but instead turned and said something to Rose before heading his direction with a very purposeful and visibly angry gait.

  “You are in big trouble now,” Deanna whispered as she moved to put space between her and the target of Aleah’s anger.

  “What were you thinking!” Aleah stopped right in front of Kevin, hands planted firmly on hips.

  Kevin’s mind tried not to see it as stereotypical, but he couldn’t help himself. That thought set off an unfortunate case of the giggles. The stern look on Aleah’s face should have made him snap out of it, unfortunately, it only made it worse. The harder that he fought to quit laughing, the worse it became. Pretty soon, tears began to stream from his eyes and he was doubled over at the waist. Eventually, he actually slipped to his knees.

  Rose had come up beside Aleah and was looking down at Kevin with genuine concern. She leaned over to get a look at him before taking an uncertain step back.

  “Maybe his mind broke,” Rose whispered.

  “That’s not all that is gonna break when I get done with him,” Aleah snarled through gritted teeth.

  “And he smells like my mama’s boyfriends always used to smell. He’s been drinking hooch.”

  Hooch, Kevin thought, what kid says “hooch”? This only made his laughter renew with doubled intensity. He thought that he was going to die from lack of being able to catch his breath…that or Aleah’s stare, but he could not stop. Now he was on his back, staring up at the cloudless cobalt sky.

  “Zombies!” a child’s voice hollered.

  That had been the magic word. Kevin’s laughter died in his throat and he rolled onto his stomach to look off in the direction that the alarm had been sounded. To their north, the street ended in a ‘T’ intersection at what looked like another church. Honestly, he had never remembered seeing so many, but now they seemed to be everywhere he looked.