Sutton chuckled momentarily.
“I think that was directed at you.”
Metzger simply nodded, indicating he didn’t believe Sutton was a very good liar when it came to women. He found it difficult to fathom the man would murder a soldier in cold blood, but Metzger couldn’t shake the image of the military man with a stab wound. Buster strolled into the kitchen, brushing against both men, trying to get one of them to pay some attention to him, or feed him.
“What does he eat?” Metzger asked, scratching the dog behind his ears, instantly making him Buster’s best friend.
“I find dog food in different stores and houses, but in a pinch I’ll cook him meat or find something in a can. It doesn’t matter, because he gives off ferocious gas either way. If there’s a silver lining to all of this, dog food isn’t in real high demand these days.”
“I’ll bet,” Metzger said, realizing he’d only seen a handful of wild or domesticated animals since leaving Ohio.
Both men jumped to their feet when a thumping sound against the outside of the house occurred on the other side of the kitchen wall.
“They’re attracted to the light,” Sutton said, looking to the candle centered on the kitchen table.
Metzger started to head for the door, but Sutton grabbed his forearm.
“It can wait ‘til morning. There won’t be enough of them to pose a danger overnight.”
If Metzger trusted the man a bit more, he might have been touched by the show of concern, but he still wasn’t convinced about Sutton’s motives. Although he decided not to pursue the undead flocking to the house, he went around and made certain all of the blinds were lowered, and the curtains closed. The group didn’t need every zombie within two miles attracted to the light like moths to a bug zapper.
Soon another thump joined the first, and the two bumped against the house in harmony, one right after the other, back and forth. At first it drove Metzger crazy, but eventually he grew tired sitting at the kitchen table and put his head down to rest his eyes for a moment. The rhythm of the undead striking the house’s exterior began lulling him to sleep, and before he knew it he slipped into a state of unconsciousness.
***
Startled by the sound of Buster growling sometime in the middle of the night, Metzger was jolted awake, finding Sutton had fallen prey to sleep as well. Both men sat erect, stared at one another momentarily, and looked to Buster who was pointed at the back porch.
Metzger jumped from his seat, reaching the open door first, finding Luke seated beside the bed, holding Albert’s hand. Looking at the clock along one of the porch’s walls, Metzger discovered it was nearly five o’clock as Buster continued to make his concerns heard. Taking a cautious step toward the loveseat, Metzger stared at Albert’s chest without blinking, finding that it didn’t rise or fall for several seconds.
Buster already knew the cold, hard truth, and warned the others that Albert was no longer a living member of their collective group.
“Luke,” Metzger said, trying to get the man’s attention as he looked through teary eyes at his life partner.
It seemed Luke already knew, but wasn’t letting go very easily. Metzger feared him getting bitten if the transformation happened to Albert’s corpse sooner than later.
“Luke, we have to take care of it before he turns,” Metzger said, trying to put the task at hand delicately.
He still didn’t acknowledge Metzger, as though guilt kept him from leaving Albert’s side.
Sutton eased up beside him, hand already placed on the knife at his side, but Metzger stuck a foreboding arm out to his side.
“I’ll take care of it,” he promised Sutton quietly.
Drawing his own knife, he took a step inside the porch, caught between respecting Luke’s last few precious moments with Albert and having a potential zombie stumbling around the farmhouse and traumatizing Samantha at the very least.
“You can’t let him turn, Luke. He’s a danger to all of us now, and you don’t want Samantha seeing him like that.”
“What does it matter?” Luke retorted with an almost absent voice, still staring at Albert’s body. “We’re all going to end up like this.”
“Look, I know it’s not much consolation, but you still have us. We aren’t going to let anything happen to either of you.”
Luke finally turned to Metzger with tears in his eyes.
“The way you didn’t let anything happen to him?”
Buster continued to emit a muffled growl, so Sutton led him to another part of the house, apparently content that Metzger had a handle on the situation.
“Luke, he made a choice for the both of you that he thought was right. Was he? I don’t know. But I know this world doesn’t often give second chances. Eventually your house would’ve been compromised, and who knows, maybe we’ll get attacked heading to Norfolk. Personally, I just want to find some semblance of safety where we aren’t getting attacked so we can rebuild society.”
“That’s a pipe dream. How can I lie to Samantha and tell her everything is going to be fine when she’s seen what happens?”
“You don’t have to lie. Kids aren’t going to grow up like we did. They’ll adapt to this world.”
“Or they’ll die.”
“We all run that risk, Luke. Think of Samantha as a cub with a lot of bears around to protect her.”
Luke looked to Albert, who still had yet to stir, or show indications of the transformation taking place within his body.
“It should’ve been me,” he said. “Albert could help people. He was the rock, and I don’t bring anything to the table. For anyone.”
“What you did at the airport was one of the bravest things I’ve ever seen anyone do,” Metzger confessed. “You did everything humanly possible to buy us time and lead the undead away from us.”
“And it still wasn’t enough.”
Metzger had spent the past few minutes attempting to be reasonable and consoling, but he couldn’t let Luke linger with a potential threat any longer.
“Luke, I can’t say I’m sorry enough times, but we have to deal with Albert before he turns.”
Luke drew a deep breath, hesitating momentarily as though he might ask to carry out the deed personally. Based on the man’s erratic emotions since leaving the airport, Metzger wasn’t certain he could trust Luke with a weapon at the moment.
“Just leave me with him,” Luke finally muttered as though sleepwalking through the conversation at this point. “That way we can be together forever.”
“Not forever,” Metzger said, beginning to sound as irritated as he felt. “I wouldn’t leave you both like that. And you can’t just leave Samantha alone. You’re the only thing she has left in this world, for better or worse, and I’m not going to let you be selfish and throw your life away.”
“Selfish?” Luke questioned, his face flush with anger.
“Yes. Selfish.”
Metzger finally felt angry for having to step up, because Luke had survived a full month based on Albert’s actions, learning virtually no useful skills during that time.
“You don’t get to check out just because you’re facing a little adversity. I walked, drove, and crawled to Tonawanda to find out my parents were almost certainly dead. Did I lie down and die? No, I went ahead and did what good I could for the rest of you. Even though I barely knew the three of you, I considered it worth it to risk my own life to get you out of that school prison. You and I aren’t that different. I’m not a soldier, and everything I can do I learned along the way, or from my parents while they were still around. You can learn, and contribute to the group as best you can.”
Luke looked down to Albert, who appeared as though he was in a peaceful slumber atop the loveseat. Metzger also stared, thinking he saw one of the dead man’s lips flinch slightly as the sound of a long, drawn out, growl-like exhale filled the room. Strangely, it could be heard just above utter silence, like the sound of a stereo with the volume control turned down to one. Metzger
wondered why the man’s lips didn’t need to part for the sound to emerge, but he now knew that Buster wasn’t indicating Albert was dead, so much as he knew he’d been dead and was now turning.
Metzger purposely stood behind Luke, knife in hand, ready to react if Albert’s reanimated corpse made any aggressive moves in their direction. He wanted Luke to see Albert in this altered state, if only to make him understand that no part of Albert existed in the shell of a human body. As the eyelids slowly fluttered open, revealing glazed, pale eyes of a now caramel color, Luke tried to recoil and step back, but Metzger blocked his path intentionally. Albert’s naturally blue eyes were transformed in death to a brown hue that looked so bright someone could have been shining a flashlight through them. From his limited science knowledge, Metzger knew the eyes stopped producing certain enzymes when death occurred, giving them a different appearance a few hours after death that lasted a limited amount of time.
For a moment the eyes focused on the ceiling, as though the body needed to adjust to the altered state before moving. Metzger questioned whether zombies simply remained motionless until something stirred their senses, causing them to rise and track down noises or track something they spotted. On numerous occasions he recalled seeing them seated in cars, or lying beside a road, simply waiting for something to activate their attention span.
Luke gasped, unintentionally drawing the attention of the newest member of the undead, who looked at him with those haunting, empty eyes. Albert no longer recognized Luke as anything except a warm meal.
“Albert?” Luke stammered, still pushing back against Metzger, who wasn’t letting him off so easily, considering Albert remained a few feet away from them.
As though experiencing the body for the first time, the undead Albert tried to lurch toward the two men, falling to the ground immediately because he didn’t place either foot on the ground before trying to stand. Now he began using his arms to crawl forward, before finally realizing the usefulness of his legs. It was as though it took a few minutes for muscle memory to kick in, but he began standing in a rather clumsy manner, still not making any real eye contact with either man. The throaty growl grew louder, and Metzger realized he needed to end this soon or risk the others hearing sounds of the undead inside the house.
“I can leave you two alone if you want,” Metzger offered, his fingers clutching the knife in anticipation of needing to use it momentarily.
“No, I think I’m good,” Luke said with an air of defeat in his voice, reacting much like Metzger anticipated.
“Go, so you don’t have to see this,” Metzger offered.
Luke didn’t even look back as he ducked into the next room, leaving Metzger to confront the man he admired among the living, who saved his life from a group of vagabonds when anyone else might have left him to be shot or ripped apart by the undead.
“I’m sorry, Albert,” he said quietly to the undead being before him, still trying to establish the simple task of standing before it attacked again.
Saving them both the wait, Metzger grabbed the zombie’s right ear, holding the head steady as he jabbed the knife through Albert’s skull from the other side. He barely found time to withdraw the blade before the undead Albert crumpled to the ground, no longer a threat to anyone.
He wiped both sides of the blade along the blanket left atop the loveseat to ensure he didn’t accidentally contaminate anyone, himself included, with the blood left on the blade. A simple cut might infect someone with leftover blood, so he didn’t take any chances, cleaning it each time he used it.
***
Leaving Luke to grieve, Metzger called upon Sutton to help him wrap Albert’s body in some spare sheets. At first light, they stepped outside and dealt with the three zombies at the back of the house with knives and the silenced pistol. Almost like an undead family, the male, female, and child zombies provided some sleepless hours for some of the temporary residents inside the house overnight. By morning the undead trio had moved away from the house and separated within the yard, making them easy targets.
Both men heaved the body outside to the grave, wrapping the sheet around it as best they could before placing it within the grave. Metzger stood watch while Sutton placed the dirt over the body. Although Metzger offered to use the shovel, Sutton refused to trade roles, stating that he wanted to finish what he started.
Even though Sutton seemed peculiar and regimented, Metzger couldn’t picture him murdering a soldier in cold blood. Everyone inside the house now knew of Albert’s demise, simply waiting for the brief eulogy to provide some form of closure.
It didn’t take long for the two men to bury Albert’s body, but Metzger felt bad that they didn’t have any kind of marker for the grave. Of course the past day was hectic between flying, crashing, dealing with the usual number of undead, and keeping peace between the members of his group and their temporary hosts.
Everyone else seemed to sense when they were finished as they all emerged from the house to pay their respects to a man they knew in varying degrees. Metzger listened as Vazquez spoke, noticing the man had some of his color back after a night where nothing could keep him from needed rest. The pilot said only a little, indicating he admired Albert’s strength and resolve during their time as captives. Jillian offered a few kind words, though she couldn’t elaborate, considering she met Albert for the first time when Molly’s group took back the school.
Buster took to walking a circle around the group, sniffing the air for any undead intruders, and stopping periodically near each individual. Some of the group ignored him, remaining focused on Albert’s eulogy, but occasionally he received a scratching of his head which caused a wag of his tail.
Metzger’s turn to provide a eulogy arrived shortly, and although he didn’t feel much like speaking, partly because he felt doing so would only irritate Luke all the more, he decided he owed it to one of the few kind people he’d met on the road.
“I wouldn’t be standing here if it weren’t for Albert,” he began. “After a month on the road, avoiding people because I learned they couldn’t be trusted, he was brave enough to save me from a group of assholes who wanted my stuff. He certainly didn’t deserve what happened to him, and the same group of assholes who failed to kill me cost Albert his life.”
Metzger paused a moment before speaking again.
“I owe Albert, Luke, and Samantha a debt of gratitude for taking me in when they could’ve left me for the zombies or that group. Albert was willing to help his fellow man, which makes him the best of us. I pray that he’s found a better place than this world the rest of us are left to fix, or endure, the best we can.”
Luke made brief eye contact with Metzger, giving a slight, though approving nod as he did so. From behind his back he pulled a marker of some sort, constructed from scrap wood and etched with what Metzger assumed was some kind of wood burning tool found in the house or the barn. He wasn’t sure how such a tool could work without electricity unless they built a fire in the fireplace and used it unconventionally. The marker beheld no dates, or thoughtful inscription, but only the name Albert McConnell, and at that moment Metzger realized he never knew Albert’s last name. For that matter, he didn’t know Luke’s or Samantha’s either.
As Luke began a more personal eulogy than anyone else, Metzger listened as intently as he could, but his thoughts wandered occasionally to heading south and the possibility of sanctuary. He expected complications to arise from Albert’s death that might separate his group, or at least cause tensions, but he needed answers sooner than later. Delaying might cost him a chance to see his brother as it had his parents, though Bryce likely had a hundred sailors around him, ready to defend whatever ship or outpost they opted to hold.
Luke was saying something about how he met Albert at the hospital after breaking his hand at work when the strangest noise reached Metzger’s ears. It sounded like a corny jingle from a commercial, or an electronic game for kids, but as all eyes slowly turned in his direction, he realized the p
hone in his pocket was ringing with whatever ringtone his father had programed into it.
Eighteen
“Oh, God, I’ve got to take this!” Metzger apologized as he quickly fished the phone from his pocket, fumbling it momentarily.
He quickly overcame the urge to look at the Caller ID, because he would be willing to talk to virtually any living person at the moment, and his brother was the only person left in the world who knew the number to the sat phone.
His fingers felt like jelly as he fumbled to hit the green button to answer the call. It beeped when he finally pressed it, raising the phone to his ear in the same motion.
“Hello?” he answered, hearing only silence in return.
Pulling the phone down, he saw that the phone indicated the call was severed or failed. Instinct told him to pull up the missed call and call the number back, but he wasn’t certain that sat phones worked the same as cell phones. If Bryce had indeed called, the Navy officer would find a way to call again. Metzger’s hand shook as he held the phone in his palm, waiting for another call, not daring touch a single button on the sat phone.
“What happened?” Jillian asked, concern written across her face.
All eyes fell to Metzger, who could barely look up after the devastating dropped call.
“I don’t know,” he said quietly. “There wasn’t anyone there when I answered.”
He looked to Luke, who wore the same mildly shocked expression as everyone else.
“I’m sorry, Luke,” he said. “I think it was my brother.”
“Can you check?” Vazquez asked, looking at the phone as though volunteering to check it for him.
“I don’t dare touch anything,” Metzger said quickly, taking a step back from the group. “I don’t want to screw it up if he tries to call back.”
An awkward silence fell across the grave site momentarily until Metzger decided he wasn’t getting another call anytime soon.
“Please continue, Luke,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
Luke looked between a sheet of notes he’d been reading from and Metzger, as though uncertain about whether or not to move forward with his eulogy. Trying to avoid appearing disrespectful, uncertain of what the group was thinking at the moment, Metzger stuffed the phone into his pocket and stepped into the semi-circle formed around the grave and Luke.
The Undead Chronicles (Book 1): Home and Back Again Page 25
