Fortunes & Failures - 03

by T. W. Brown

  “A couple of things, actually,” Kevin replied shyly. He handed her a set of heavy duty working gloves.

  Aleah accepted them. They seemed inordinately heavy and made a jingly sound. She peeked inside and discovered wire mesh attached with plastic-coated twists.

  “Okay.” She handed them back with a questioning look. “So what’s the deal?”

  “We had a friend turn, and our best guess is that he ingested blood or something,” Kevin explained. “I believe it proves that this is transmitted by body fluids like a virus. Well, rubber gloves would be silly. However, wearing these mesh lined babies should provide better protection. I took the mesh gloves from the kitchen of an Italian restaurant, and these waterproof gloves have a special liner. Your hands will practically be invulnerable. Add a pair of goggles to protect the eyes and you are ready for battle. I only have one pair of goggles right now; I think they were sports goggles, but they are fog resistant which is an added bonus. I will look for more next time I go out.”

  “You really have given this a lot of thought,” Aleah marvelled.

  “Maybe,” Kevin shrugged, “but I’m learning a bunch on the fly.”

  They sat in awkward silence for a moment. Kevin kept glancing sideways at the woman beside him. She was so gorgeous; what on earth was she doing sitting here talking to him?

  “Ummm…” He cleared his suddenly dry throat. “I have enough to make three pairs of gloves. Would you like me to show you how to make your very own set?”

  “You’re such a sweet talker!” Aleah laughed. Kevin blushed a deep crimson which then prompted her to throw her arms around his neck and plant a loud kiss on his cheek.

  “I think you two are so cute,” Heather sing-songed as she walked in and found a seat in a dusty recliner. Now Kevin was beyond flustered. He looked miserable and uncomfortable.

  “I believe that we have unsettled the Great Zombie Killer.” Aleah winked at Heather who stifled the urge to giggle. She’d never seen him at such a loss.

  “I…ummm…err…” Was all he kept managing to get out of his mouth.

  “So what’s the plan?” Heather asked, sitting back in the soft chair.

  “M-m-morning,” Kevin stammered as Aleah turned to face him, crossing her legs Indian-style, planting her elbows on her knees, and resting her chin in her hands. “We leave at first light.”

  “Do you need us to do anything?” Heather inquired.

  “Get some rest. The next few days could be nasty. If we find a good spot to hide and crash for the night while we’re out there…I’d consider that a luxury.”

  Aleah noticed how quickly his confidence returned when he began speaking about their upcoming mission. Also, while addressing Heather he seemed totally at ease. She signaled the younger girl with her eyes to follow her out of the room.

  “Okee-dokee.” Heather popped out of the chair. “You get back to your project.”

  “Uh, I was gonna, umm, show—” Kevin fumbled.

  “You go ahead.” Aleah patted his arm. “This seems like something I wouldn’t want to risk screwing up. When we get back from the run and you have some time, you can show me while we make everybody else’s.” With that, she kissed him on the cheek again and followed Heather out of the room.

  They walked through the house and out on to the back porch. The moment the door closed Heather spun around. “Oh-emm-gee!”

  “Yikes!” Aleah nodded. “You’re right. It is even worse than I thought.”

  “What’d I tell ya; he’s totally crushing on you.”

  “I’ve never seen a guy so awkward and shy around girls.”

  “You know he was rockin’ the whole geek-culture thing before all this.”

  “He’s probably never seen himself as cute,” Aleah sighed. “It’s funny. A person’s interests really defined them before all of this happened. Smart people were geeks, athletes and movie stars were cool…I wonder how sexy Mick Jagger would be now?”

  “Who?” Heather asked innocently.

  “The singer for the Rolling Stones?”

  “Oh,” the younger girl nodded, “I think that my dad used to listen to them.”

  “Mine, too,” Aleah agreed. “But he is just the most obvious example of a seriously unattractive man made hot by his Rockstar status that I could think of.”

  Heather simply nodded, not sure where Aleah was going with all of this. “So do you think Kevin is cute?”

  “Considering that none of us are at our best these days, I’d say that, solely based on his looks, he’s got the boy-next-door cuteness thing working; of which he is completely clueless about.”

  “I know, right?” Heather agreed enthusiastically. “And the whole shy thing makes it even—”

  “Sexier!” Aleah finished the sentence.

  “So,” Heather grew serious, “are you gonna go for it?”

  “Absolutely.”

  

  “Tell me again why we are walking when we have a perfectly good truck?” Heather complained only half sarcastically.

  Kevin ignored the jibe, taking a long drink from the water bottle. He wiped his mouth and cast the empty aside. Rising up slowly, he took a peek over the fence.

  They’d made it this far and had two more back yards to cross before they reached the street lined with stores and offices. That was their destination. Or, at least that was the street that held their ultimate goal.

  “I’ll go over first,” Kevin whispered. There was something ‘off’ about that yard that he couldn’t place his finger on. While he couldn’t see anything, it was obvious that something had been skulking around back there. The tall grass had visible trails stomped through it. That was strange, because the sliding glass door that led to the yard from the house was shut. Perhaps there was a gate on the far side that remained out of sight.

  Setting his mostly empty backpack on the other side first, Kevin took one more look before climbing over. He could see zombies in singles and clusters just about every direction around them. However, none seemed to have noticed them yet and were just stumbling and trudging around on their little zombie errands.

  As soon as his feet touched down, he drew the hefty cornstalk hacking blade and took a look around. After he was as sure as he could be, he turned to take Heather’s and Aleah’s packs.

  “Okay, Aleah, you f—” he started to whisper and was cut off by a strange sound coming from behind and to his left. “Stay back!” he warned, pushing Aleah away and spinning towards the noise.

  “What in God’s name is that?” Aleah pointed. Kevin followed her finger to the source of her visible fright and revulsion.

  Whatever it was had vanished back into the tall grass. Cocking his arm back to strike with the wicked blade, Kevin circled around to the rear of where the grass continued to shake with the passing of the unknown horror lurking out of sight.

  He was barely creeping by the time he’d closed the tweny or so feet that had initially separated them, and wasn’t all too certain that he wanted to know what was making the strange noises and scuttling through the tall, overgrown yard.

  Whatever it was seemed to stop moving for a moment. Then, without warning, it wriggled out from a thick clump of weed-infiltrated grass. Kevin felt his gorge rise. The zombified Golden Retreiver was splayed out, dragging itself with its front legs. One rear leg was completely gone and its belly practically hollowed out. Its fur was matted and clumped. The eyes suffered the same milky-white coating with black tracers. Its tongue lolled out one side of its mouth, a putrid mix of black and mold green. But that was only part of the horror. Nestled in—practically wedged, and the reason the Golden was tilted drastically to one side—was the head of a small child, its eyes shifting back and forth.

  Lunging in, Kevin hacked away until he was certain that both nightmarish abominations were dispatched. He walked back to the fence, shoulders slumped. Had some demented director of zombie films decided to include such a scene in his movie, it would have ended up on the cutting room floor, or
included in the Special edition Director’s cut DVD. It certainly would not have been deemed fit for the sensibilities of the American movie audience.

  A dog? Kevin wondered. He tried to consider any scenario that resulted in what he’d just seen and came up with nothing.

  “You okay?” Aleah swung her leg over and lowered herself beside the visibly shaken man.

  “It’s just…” He fought back the tears that made their unwelcome presence known in his burning eyes. “It’s just that, every time I think that I’ve been saturated to the point where nothing else can get to me, to where I can function, something like this comes along and tops all the other horrors I’ve seen.”

  “That bad?” Heather asked as she dropped to the ground and picked up her pack.

  The trio crossed the yard in silence. Kevin paused once, his hand brushing the L’il Tykes slide. Aleah and Heather reached the fence first and looked into the next yard. An above ground pool had once dominated the space. At some point, one side had buckled. Remnants of what looked like a huge blood smear stood out against the sky-blue aluminum siding of the construct. The three climbed over and crossed, reaching the edge of the residential area and finding themselves looking out at the start of the business district.

  From their current vantage point, they could see a landscape of fast food restaurants, convenience stores, insurance offices, and used car dealerships offering “Kwik and E-Z financing”. To the right, about five blocks away, a defunct neon sign with what looked like a beaker and a swizel stick poking out above the letters “RX” beckoned.

  “It’s like those scenes in the movies,” Aleah whispered.

  “Huh?” Heather glanced at the woman, unsure as to what scene she could be referring to, and what sorts of twisted movies she watched.

  “Those scenes where the camera starts with a close-up of something, then zooms back like it is a million miles away even though it is just across the street.”

  “Okay,” Kevin hissed, interrupting the girls’ conversation, “the best thing that I can come up with is for me to create a diversion…break some glass or something. You two sneak over through that playground a block over. Use the cars and whatnot for cover to stay out of sight. Get to the pharmacy and use the glass cutter to get in. Remember to make the hole big enough to get the packs through. Use—”

  “Use the suction cups to pull the cutout free,” both girls said in unison.

  “I know I’m nagging,” Kevin snapped defensively, “but our best chance lies in them not seeing or hearing you. And be careful once you get inside, you may have to take out one or two inside the pharmacy.”

  “And when will you be joining us?” Heather asked.

  “Just as soon as I can ditch the crowd that I draw.”

  “Don’t go getting yourself trapped,” ALeah mock-scolded.

  “I’ll do my best,” Kevin promised and climbed up and over the tall, wooden fence. “Wait a few minutes after you hear the crash, then stay low and out of sight.” He patted the fence lightly in a farewell gesture and started off up the street.

  “Hey!” Aleah’s head poked over the fence. Kevin turned with a questioning look on his face. She motioned him closer. He followed her gestures until he was standing on the crossbeam at the bottom of the fence that the slats were affixed to. She threw her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips. Then, without a word, she let go, flashed a smile, and disappeared.

  Kevin stepped dreamily onto the sidewalk. Several nearby zombies had taken notice and began to head his way. Forcing his mind to concentrate on the moment at hand, he took off at a jog. An old-woman-zombie tottered into his path and he smashed it in the face with the pommel of his bladed weapon. It fell over, almost as helpless as an overturned turtle on its back pawing at the air.

  The street had a slight uphill slope that he became more aware of as he continued jogging along. For some reason, he was keenly aware of the fact that he was breaking out in a sweat. He made a mental note to try and snatch a few sticks of deodorant. Surely there had to be a hygiene section in that drug store.

  An arm reached out from under a smashed up compact car that had run up onto the curb and wrapped around a metal streetlight post. Kevin kicked the arm aside and kept jogging. He glanced over his shoulder and almost tripped on his own two feet. At least a hundred of those things were already on his heels.

  Up ahead was a tee-intersection. The four-lane cross street capped the one he was currently jogging up. Like a crown jewel, a car dealership sat right at the top of the hill at the head of the road. Up on a platform was some luxury car that Kevin wasn’t familiar with. The lot itself was strangely empty, but none of that mattered. What Kevin’s sights were set on were the giant floor-to-ceiling windows of the display room.

  Coming to a stop under the sagging and dead streetlight, Kevin shrugged off the shotgun and sheathed his blade. Giving one of the few remaining cars a wide berth just in case something lurked underneath, he walked up to within a dozen yards of the building. Casting another look back at the growing throng already in pursuit of him, he leveled the barrel at the lower left corner of the giant window and fired.

  The tinted glass seemed to turn white for a fraction of a second before it cascaded in a wave of glistening cubes of treated glass that poured into the parking lot and showroom floor. Between that noise and the sound of the shotgun blast, every head was turned his direction.

  “Come and get it!” Kevin hollered. He’d already spotted his escape route.

  

  “That’s it,” Aleah announced as the echo of Kevin’s shotgun blast seemed to hang in the air for several seconds along with another sound that she thought must be breaking glass.

  “So now we count to a hundred?” Heather asked.

  Aleah peeked over the fence. Every zombie in sight was either turning, or already headed up the road to where the blast came from. “Actually,” Aleah lowered herself and faced the younger girl, “I think we need to move now. We’ll be moving against the flow, all we need to do is stay out of sight.”

  “Can I say something?” Heather’s voice sounded uncharacteristically meek.

  “Sure.”

  “I wasn’t big on horror movies, but I’ve seen a few. It seems to me that, besides the topless girl who trips and sprains her ankle when the monster is chasing her, it was always the person who changed the plan that ends up getting killed.”

  “Then you should be safe,” Aleah said way too cheerfully. With that, she headed for the gate and slipped out between the house and the covered boat parked for eternity beside it.

  “It never goes well for the idiot tagging along, either,” Heather mumbled, then took off in pursuit of the blonde ponytail that had just vanished around the corner.

  She rounded the corner as Aleah was pulling her sharpened metal-tipped spear from the eye socket of a huge woman in what was left of a green, fuzzy bathrobe. She had a lot of the standard injuries that you got used to seeing in the undead over time. But there was something about this one that made her stop. One enormous breast had been ripped up pretty bad, but the other one was simply gone; an odd-shaped, puckered scar that was a stark white contrast stood out on the dead skin.

  “Breast cancer survivor,” Aleah said as she wiped off the end of her weapon on the least filthy part of the bathrobe.

  “How sad,” Heather sighed, following Aleah as she moved out into the street.

  It was mostly clear as the two stayed hunched down between a pair of parked cars to get a better look. The only zombie in sight was a gaunt figure standing in the wiondow of a large house a couple of lots down in the McMansion-dotted neighborhood. It pawed feebly at the glass.

  “We go on three,” Aleah hissed. “Through that hedge and over that chain link fence. Have your weapon out just in case there’s something nasty waiting on the other side. Beyond that yard we should have the park. Look first, then up and over the fence in the back yard.”

  Heather nodded and Aleah commenced the countdown, taki
ng off at a sprint just before saying “Three!” Heather followed and the pair arrived almost simultaneously at the fence in the back of the house they’d skirted down the side of.

  Heather was up and had one leg over when she froze. Aleah pulled herself up and almost fell backwards. She managed to keep her grip and pulled herself up alongside Heather.

  “Holy crap!” Aleah breathed.

  

  Kevin brought the butt of his shotgun up and slammed it into the front window. The reverberation hurt both wrists, but the glass had a nasty spiderweb. Two more hits finally did it and the window broke. He cast one look over his shoulder, making certain that the zombies closing in were no threat to grab his foot as he climbed through the ticket booth window of the ten-screen multiplex.

  Careful not to snag himself on any of the shards jutting from the edges, Kevin climbed in. The door opened and he found himself in a mostly dark lobby. There was just enough ambient light to see by. Taking a deep sniff, he relaxed a little. The only thing he smelled was the lingering and well-permeated scent of stale popcorn. His mouth began to water at the memory of his former favorite snackfood.

  Closing the door to the ticket office behind him, he ventured into the lobby. He heard a few things skitter away from him in the shadows and hoped rats didn’t turn like dogs apparently did. His eyes took in the variety of posters under banners like “COMING SOON” and “NOW PLAYING” and he felt a weird pang of regret and sadness.

  He rounded a corner and screamed. Picking himself up off the floor, he willed his heart rate to slow back down. A life-sized cutout of Alyson Hannigan dressed in tight leather and holding an axe over her head glared back. He looked closer and notinced LEDs where her eyes were. Probably glows red, he thought. Taking a closer look, he was actually amused by her attempt at an evil snarl. He couldn’t help it as his eyes drifted down to her prominently displayed cleavage.