Fortunes & Failures - 03

by T. W. Brown

  Kim started across an overgrown park. If memory served, there was a pond in this park. She didn’t care if the water was muddy, slimy, or whatever, she was just so thirsty. Skirting a clump of trees, she continued to curse her life of seemingly endless bad decisions. And now, it was as if she were reaping the consequences of them all in one fell swoop.

  Reaching the edge of the pond, Kim knelt and began scooping handfuls of the tepid water to her mouth. There was a definite and unappealing aftertaste, but she didn’t care. She was so incredibly thirsty. Finally full, she sat back on the muddy clay shore and looked around. Two of those things were across the pond staggering around the blacktop basketball court. A few more were scattered around the park and obviously aware of her presence.

  As much as she wanted to rest, Kim climbed to her feet and brushed herself off. Holding her ski pole at the ready, she headed across the park towards another generic-looking neighborhood. Perhaps one of those houses would offer the refuge she sought.

  It took her a while to lose the zombies that had fallen in on her trail; it seemed that every time she would lose the one or dozen following her, she walked smack dab into the sights of another. A few times, she even contemplated giving up. Then she remembered the screams of pain and erased those thoughts.

  As dusk began to settle, Kim climbed a fence into a back yard. Children’s toys and a swing set dominated the overgrown area as painful reminders of what everybody had lost in the past several months. Now that she thought about it, Ronni was one of only a few children she’d seen, even at the shelter.

  Shaking off the images of her own child, Kim crept to the house. Her stomach threatened to give her away as it sounded off with a tremendous gurgle. In an instant it was if she felt whatever still existed in her bowels suddenly shift. She had to clench tightly to avoid a disaster.

  Clutching her belly she peeked in the window. An empty kitchen greeted her. Flies, living and dead decorated the windowsill and counter. Against all hope she placed her hands flat against the glass and tried to shift the window. It opened. Now all she had to do was—

  The stench of rotten food hit her full force and Kim wretched. Unfortunately that forced her to quit clenching. Her bowels seemed to match the violence of her gorge and she found herself spewing vile fluids from two orifices simultaneously. When it came to its merciful conclusion, Kim straightened up and looked back inside the house. Nothing had come to investigate. That was the only blessing she could see as she climbed awkwardly through the window.

  Once inside, she stripped out of her clothes right there and crept into the house. It was dark but gloriously empty. She found a stack of clean sheets and towels in a closet and wiped herself down as best she could in the empty bathtub, leaving the soiled linens in a heap as she staggered through an open bedroom door and collapsed on the bed. Dehydrated and exhausted, Kim cried herself to sleep.

  * * * * *

  10

  Geek Power

  “Kevin,” a sweet voice called to him, beckoning him from his dreams and the warm cocoon of sleep. He opened his eyes to discover an angel in a halo of light smiling down on him. He smiled back at the engel, pushing away the thoughts that he didn’t even believe in God or Heaven which made this angel an icon of how wrong he’d been in his life.

  “You awake, sleepy head?” the angel said and laughed the most beautiful, melodic sound he’d ever heard.

  “You’re so beautiful,” Kevin managed. Chancing whatever punishment it might incur, he reached up to touch the angel.

  “That’s sweet.” The angel patted his cheek, moving just enough to allow the sunlight to hit him square in the eyes, effectively blinding him. When the angel moved again, it was Aleah. “But you need to see something.”

  There was a tone in her voice that snatched Kevin the rest of the way out of dreamland. Rubbing the last remnants of sleep from his eyes, he looked around to regain his bearings. It took him another ten seconds to remember where he was and how he’d gotten there. It also took just about that long to remember what he’d just said to Aleah.

  “Uh…wh—”

  “No time for that now,” she cut him off and grabbed his arm, pulling him to his feet. The blanket he’d been wrapped in slid off him and to the floor, revealing another slightly embarrassing physiological event that plagued most men first thing in the morning when they woke up. To her credit, if Aleah noticed, she didn’t say a word.

  Kevin tugged at his pants a little trying to adjust things to a more comfortable and less obvious position. The side door to the RV was open and Aleah ducked out. He followed, trying desperately to clear his head. He was in a huge lot with rows and rows of RVs of all sizes. They’d taken up in one about four or five rows back. That was as good as he could do for them as far as safety for the night.

  He crept up behind Aleah who was peeking around the corner of a large, metal-framed garage. Heather was already there kneeling on the ground and very intent on whatever she was watching. Then, the smell hit him. Kevin stifled a gag and took a look for himself.

  His mouth opened, but nothing came out. He could add being dumbstruck to a list of expressions he’d heard used before without fully appreciating but now had full understanding. No words could describe the mix of fear, horror and revulsion that hit him simultaneously. His eyes struggled to make sense of what he was seeing, and failed.

  In what had to be thousands, the undead were moving past. All ages, shapes, and sizes were represented in this swarm. Bigger than any group he’d seen—even in the larger cities—they moved past, mowing down everything too small to simply be shoved aside. The best thing that he could liken it too was the tsunami footage he’d seen on the news. All matter of debris was actually being swept up and pushed forward by the herd. His eyes fixed on a blue mailbox like the type on street corners. It tumbled and rolled along until it eventually wedged up against an overturned SUV.

  “What the hell?” Kevin whispered to Heather.

  “The leading edge hit about an hour ago,” she replied.

  “You mean this has been going on for an hour?”

  “Yeah, but we heard it almost an hour before that,” Heather replied. “Lucky for us they seem to be funneled down those two main roads.”

  “I climbed up on the showroom,” Aleah spoke up, “and you can’t see the end of them.”

  “That’s the bad news,” Heather added. “But we are lucky because they don’t seem inclined to change direction. They are on a set path and don’t deviate from it. Well, except for some of the stragglers. And that is where our luck comes in; this place is up a steep hill. The zombies don’t like hills. They just plod along, and the stragglers that wander off do so on easy paths. They won’t even make it to the concrete barrier that runs along the front of the entry road.”

  “You say that this has been going on for an hour?” Kevin asked.

  “Yes,” both girls answered simultaneously.

  “Wow!” Kevin shook his head. “And how long have I been out?”

  “All night and past midday,” Aleah answered.

  “Damn.”

  “What’s wrong?” Heather asked.

  “We told Peter and the girls that we would be back today.”

  “I think they know things can happen out here that tend to throw schedules off,” Aleah said matter-of-factly.

  “Sure, but I don’t like worrying them when we didn’t have to,” Kevin complained. “Why didn’t you guys wake me?”

  “Dude,” Aleah covered her mouth to stifle a giggle, “you were out of it. Those zombies are more alive than you were.”

  “Well…” Kevin took another peek, “I guess all we can do is wait them out. Let’s get back inside and stay away from the windows. All it takes is one of those things to catch a glimpse and that entire herd could shift directions, hill or no hill.”

  The three went back inside the RV and passed around a water bottle while sharing a can of vegetable soup. It was cold, and since they were being careful with their water, it
was also salty. Occassionally they would check on the status of the passing zombie herd. Just before sunset, the last of the stragglers was making their way past.

  “I say we wait until tomorrow evening before we head out,” Kevin announced.

  Once it was dark, Kevin made his way to the little bed space in the rear of the vehicle. Heather had already laid claim to the fold out where the dinner table was, so he decided that it wouldn’t be ungentlemanly to lay claim to the bedroom. He even decided to treat himself to a night’s sleep without his boots on. He peeled off his socks and tucked them inside his boots.

  He was almost asleep when a little sound snapped him back to fully conscious. His eyes scanned the darkness, hoping to see anything at all, and his hearing became hyper-sensitive.

  “Kevin?” a voice whispered.

  “Aleah?” he answered the darkness.

  His blanket pulled away, and it took him a moment to realize that he needed to scoot over to make room. He unconsciously held his breath as he felt Aleah slip into bed beside him. Uncertain what to do, he eased himself down flat on his back. He still didn’t move when he felt hands on his chest, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt. He struggled to maintain his breathing when slender fingers touched his bare skin and peeled his shirt away. He gasped at the feel of Aleah’s naked body against his.

  “Are you gonna make me take off your pants, too?” Aleah whispered in his ear.

  

  Kevin allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief once they’d crossed the bridge over the Licking River. Even though they hadn’t seen, heard, or smelled a zombie in over an hour, he hated that feeling of being exposed out on the openness of the bridge. He had this irrational fear that, once they reached halfway, zombies would suudenly appear at either end, trapping them.

  “Let’s cut through that field.” Kevin pointed, shifting his backpack so that the straps could rub him raw someplace else for a while. “There should be a long stretch of straight road on the other side.”

  “That Google picture had one of those red crosses down that way, though…if I’m remembering correctly,” Heather said, nibbling on her lower lip as she tried to will the image into her mind that they had studied before starting out on this leg of their journey. “Isn’t that something we are trying to avoid; especially after the last one?”

  Each of them was silent for a moment…remembering. They’d decided to veer slightly off course to check out one of what they figured to be a military medical facility in case there might be something useful. It’d been horrific. The absolute carnage that had taken that place down was bad enough, but the number of children…

  “Are you sure?” Kevin asked.

  “Yeah, it was just past this side of the bridge.”

  “I thought it was just before the bridge.”

  “No.” The image crystalized in Heather’s memory. She looked right, finding the dogleg in the river exactly where she expected. She walked over to the dark silhouette of a street sign and aimed the red beam of light up at it. “Yep, we’re at the intersection of Second and Spring; we want to go down to Summit, staying on Second.”

  “Wow,” Kevin said sounding amazed. “You have that map committed Rain Man-style.”

  “Well,” Heather spun back around, the shadows hiding her smile, “somebody has been a little distracted.” Aleah didn’t stifle her giggle.

  “Huh?” Kevin was grateful for the darkness so that his sudden blushing wasn’t visible to the pair of giggling females.

  “Nothing,” Heather said with a dismissive laugh as she started off down the road, Aleah falling in step beside her.

  There was ample moon and starlight for him to see their heads together in whispered conversation. He fell back a few steps; partially to keep an eye out to ensure that nothing came up behind them, and partially to minimize his embarrassment. He’d been beyond mortified when Heather had walked in that next morning to discover he was in bed naked. With Aleah. Also naked.

  The rest of the day, he’d made the excuse that he was going to check out the lot for anything useful. That was a complete lie. He’d vanished into another vehicle and sat there reliving the amazing events of the previous night. Of course, the first go ‘round had been a bit embarrassing. There’d been that uncomfortable moment when he waited for the derisive laughter to begin. He expected some commentary about his lack of sexual prowess and stamina to begin. Instead…Aleah kissed him!

  “Now that you have that one out of the way…” she’d whispered in his ear, nibbling playfully at his ear lobe.

  The rest of the night had been amazing. Then he’d drifted off, luxuriating in the feeling of her soft, lithe body wrapped around his, her head resting on his chest.

  He’d never gone to sleep holding a woman before. A tiny part of his brain tried to ruin everything by reminding him that it had taken the end of the world to make it happen.

  Kevin snapped out of his reverie just as the hand reached out from under the truck that Aleah and Heather were passing. It swiped at Aleah’s leg, catching her ankle. As she fell to the concrete, a shaggy-maned head poked out from the inky blackness. He had a wicked blade in his other hand and was raising it to strike.

  “Help me,” the pitiful creature mewled. Kevin couldn’t tell if it was male or female…old or young.

  Heather had screamed, but Aleah had landed hard and her only sound had been a great exhale when she hit the ground. Kevin froze, stopping his arm from following through and plunging his blade into the crown of this person’s skull. Instead, he kicked the arm that still held the knife, sending it clattering away. He or she still clutched the hem of Aleah’s jeans with gnarled hands. They were horribly emaciated, and had it not been for him hearing this person speak, he would’ve been certain that it was a zombie.

  “Who are you and what are you doing out here hiding under a truck?” Kevin rolled the stranger over with his boot. Reaching down, he grabbed a handful of hair and tossed the person aside.

  “Puh-puh-please,” the voice begged. Kevin still couldn’t peg a gender down. Whoever they were, they stank, and judging by how easy he’d tossed the body aside, they hadn’t eaten in a long time. Part of him worried that perhaps the zombies had learned a new trick. Maybe they were like parrots and could mimic sounds they heard over and over. “Help me” and “please” were probably the most common words a zombie heard.

  “Matt,” the person tried to hold his hands up as if to ward off an expected blow. “Matt Rhodes.”

  “What are you doing under a truck by yourself in the middle of the night?” Kevin asked suspiciously.

  “”Crashed…two weeks…ago,” Matt said through hacking coughs.

  “Here,” Heather said kneeling beside the man and handing him a bottle of water. The man got more on him than in him as he choked and coughed with each sip.

  Kevin started feeling edgy. It was one thing to be on the move, out in the open where the risk of being spotted was constant. It was quite another to be stationary. He didn’t want to stand around any longer.

  “Can you walk?” Kevin snapped, his agitation coming through in his voice.

  Matt dragged himself up to a sitting position and pulled his right leg out front. Kevin winced at what he saw. A piece of metal was sticking through the man’s upper thigh. The smell of infection wafted into the nostrils of the three mortified onlookers.

  “I’ve tried to pull it out,” Matt said. “But it just hurts so bad…I always end up chickening out.”

  “Well, we can’t just hang out here with our thumbs up our—”

  “Kevin?” Heather hissed.

  Aleah leaned over and whispered something in the younger girl’s ear. She nodded, but even in the minimal light of the night sky, Kevin could tell she was scowling at him.

  “Matt,” Heather took the man’s hand in hers, “we want to take you with us, but we need your help with something.” Kevin watched Aleah shift to the other side of the downed man, moving behind his back.

  “What ca
n I do?” Matt only sounded a little better having put away most of the bottle of water.

  “Start by forgiving me.”

  “What?”

  He never saw Aleah grab the piece of metal, never had the chance to react as Heather grabbed his legs firmly with both hands. Aleah yanked and Matt screamed, then lost consciousness. If the wound smelled bad before, it positively reeked now. Heather was already slipping out of her backpack. She produced a bottle and twisted off the top.

  “You just gonna stand there?” The girl glared up at Kevin. “Cut his pants away.”

  As he knelt, the low moan of a nearby zombie sounded. “How is this helping?” Kevin asked as he sliced all the way down the pants leg from thigh to cuff.

  “We can carry him back,” Heather said as she poured a bottle of isopropyl alcohol over the wound. Matt moaned, but didn’t regain consciousness.

  “And how do you propose we do that and fight off the zombies that will be here any moment wanting to eat our faces off?” Kevin retorted, getting back up but not putting the knife away.

  “We can’t just leave him here to die,” Heather insisted.

  “Give me your pack.” Aleah nudged him.

  “Then what?”

  “That guy can’t weigh more than your pack.”

  “But carrying a person is much different than carrying a backpack.”