by Joseph Zuko
“Yes, you can keep watching the show, just stay here in the living room with him.” She stretched her arms out wide to give both girls the same hug. Robin noticed the wrap on her wrist.
“Mama, you hurt?” she could barely focus on the hug she was so caught up with the wrap on her Mama’s injured wrist.
“Yep, Mama has a hurt wrist, but it’s okay you don’t have to worry about it.” Karen smooched both girls on the top of their little heads. Robin already forgot that she asked about it and was pulled back into the epic drama of Dora the Explorer. Swiper the Fox was up to his old tricks.
“I love you girls. Mama will be right back.”
“Love you too, Mama,” the children didn’t break away from the TV screen. Karen thought maybe in this instance that was okay. They wouldn’t let her go if they really knew what she was up to.
Karen clutched her keys and headed for the front door. She checked the peephole and it was still clear out in the street. She swung the door open and Leon stepped out onto the front porch. He kept the shotgun up and ready. Karen pulled the door closed and clicked both locks into place. She checked the door three times.
One. Two. Three. It was locked.
She slipped her keys into her front pocket and pulled out her Ruger.
“Show me this party house,” Leon clicked off the safety and jogged across the lawn towards the street.
“It’s the house with the RV parked out front.” Karen kept pace with him and pointed to the house down the street.
“RV?” Leon’s breath was already labored.
“I know, I thought about that, but it’s too big to fit in the garage,” She was at the end of her candle, Karen’s feet felt like blocks of cement. A strong breeze could knock her to her ass. They crossed the street and headed for the targeted house.
An infected woman tossed itself through the living room window of the house next door.
There was a goddamn infected next door this whole time?!
The sudden noise and scare of the blood covered body crashing to the ground woke Karen all the way back up. She had another adrenaline charge left in her system. The window shredded chunks of meat off of her body and she gushed black sludge out onto the lawn. Leon took point and rocked it with a blast from the twelve gauge before it got to its feet.
Karen pushed herself harder and got her legs chugging. She really hated being out in the open like this and wanted to be indoors as quickly as possible. They raced up the driveway next to the RV and headed for the garage door. Leon pressed his nose to its window and covered his forehead to get a better look in the garage.
“What do they have?” Karen puffed out the words and watched their backs.
“It’s a Jeep.”
“That’s good. They can go off road.” Karen backed up to the garage’s window and took a look herself. It was a new model Jeep but the rag top was off.
Damn!
That was almost perfect.
“Let’s try the next house.” Karen stepped away from the window and made straight for the next house on the block.
“Didn’t you want to look for the booze?” Leon followed after her.
“Not until we have a ride to load it into,” she called over her shoulder at him. Karen hustled across the lawn and hit the next house down. The garage was empty.
Hells bells!
“Keep going. It’s empty,” Karen leaped over a shrub. The sun was no longer directly above them. The air had cooled by ten degrees and the breeze felt wonderful on her skin. The sun was now dropping out in the west and it cast creepy shadows that played with Karen’s mind. It looked as if there was an infected around every corner and one hiding behind every tree.
The next house had its garage door raised a foot. Karen dropped to the ground and laid herself flat in front of the opening. A set of tires greeted her, but she couldn’t make out what kind of car it was at first.
BOOM BOOM! Leon cycled through a set of shells. Infected bodies fell and slid across the asphalt. Karen looked back to check out the action. Two teenage girls laid at the foot of the driveway.
“What’s in there?” Leon asked as he pulled a shell from the bandolier. Karen inched a little closer to the door to see the front of the car.
“Subaru, looks like a wagon, I think I can fit in here. Should we see if anyone’s home?”
“Yep, let’s see if Sue and Bobby can come out and play.” Leon reached down and helped Karen to her feet. They headed for the front door. Karen peeked through a diamond shaped window decoratively placed in the door.
Nothing.
“Looks clear,” she whispered.
Leon took a look for himself and he agreed, “Step aside.” He whispered and Karen moved to the edge of the door. He crashed the butt of the shotgun down on the knob, but the brass fixture held firm. “Damn!” he clobbered it again and it left a dent, but didn’t break the seal on it.
“Just shoot it!” Karen was getting anxious and ready to be back home.
BOOM!
Leon wrecked the knob and the door swung open. Karen stepped slowly through the doorway. She didn’t bother to call out a hello or anyone here? She felt like the knocking and shooting of the front door was enough. The living room was clean. No signs of a struggle or turned family member that needed to be snuffed out.
Leon sped past her and headed for the garage, “Check the kitchen cabinets,” he said as he exited the living room. Karen inched her way through the strange house. The smiling faces in the family photos haunted her. It was a young family with children close to the same age as Valerie.
If they weren’t home then where were they?
Dead? Just like so many others in this neighborhood.
The place was so clean. That’s what really stood out for Karen. They must have had a professional maid come by weekly and give this place a solid once over. No way could a mom with young children keep a home this clean all by herself. It would have taken an army of Karens to do this level of work and her place was half the size of this home. The kitchen was immaculate. Every little thing had its perfect little spot. She checked some of the cabinets and they looked like a magazine shoot of someone’s fake kitchen.
Who would spend that much time organizing every shelf in their kitchen?
They must have suffered from O.C.D.
Karen opened a cupboard close to the refrigerator and JACKPOT! It was the good stuff, not the shit on the bottom shelf at the liquor store. It was mid to top shelf booze, baby! They had full bottles of Absolut vodka, Beefeater gin, Johnny Walker Black scotch and a Patron tequila. Karen needed to find a sturdy bag to carry all this in.
“How are you doing in there?” She called to Leon as she searched the pantry for a bag.
His voice was muffled. Leon’s head was still stuck under the steering column, “Almost got it!” he grunted to her.
“We hit it big here! They had a sweet stash. I’m bagging it all up now.” Karen found a heavy duty canvas bag and carefully loaded out each bottle one at a time. It occurred to her that if the world stayed on this course this stuff would become liquid gold.
It might be a good idea to store one or two of these away for a rainy day.
They could use it to barter for food, weapons or ammo. People will definitely be needing strong drinks. So many loved ones lost today. That’s a lot of mourning. The Subaru’s engine purred in the garage. Leon had it running and was ready to hit the road.
“Hurry up!” He called to her as he pulled the driver’s side door shut.
“I’m almost done,” Karen removed the last bottle off the shelf and slid it into the bag with the others. She double checked the cabinets to make sure she got them all.
BOOM!
A bullet ripped passed Karen’s head and punched a hole in the perfect cabinet door. Karen ducked down behind the island in the center of the kitchen.
What the fuck was that?
CHAPTER 10
Jim weaved the PT Cruiser around a couple of destroyed cars blocking th
e street. He pulled back into the parking lot of his apartment complex. On the ride back Sara and Frank kept themselves busy loading the rifles and shotguns. Sara found a killer Glock 17 that she fell in love with. Frank walked her through a quick tutorial and she pushed the fully loaded seventeen round magazine into the bottom of the gun. Sara found the matching holster and strapped it to her hip as they entered the parking lot.
Jim had begun to feel nauseous. His face felt like it was about to explode from his throbbing sores. The wounds on his forehead and nose radiated a heat he had never experienced before. Most of the day he had suffered with the broken nose. The injury to his nose gave him a sweet set of black eyes to complete the loser boxer image he had going. Then a few hours ago he got the gash on his forehead from the car wreck. He caught a glimpse of himself in the rearview mirror. He looked like a monster. His appearance and the way he reeked made him look and smell more like the infected zombies roaming the streets than a normal human being. He longed for an hour to himself. One hour where his life wasn’t in danger. One hour where he didn’t have to kill an infected. Sixty minutes so he could eat a real meal and clean the foulness that encrusted his body. More than anything he wished he could be home with his wife and children. It felt like a lifetime ago when he kissed his wife goodbye for the day.
Jim knew that giving Devon a blood transfusion would lay him up for a few hours before he could try and race across town to his mother-in-law’s house.
If I do leave for my family how would I get Devon there? One job at a time he thought.
Job number one. Get back upstairs to Cliff and Tina’s.
Job number two. Save Devon.
Job number three. Get home. It was two jobs away before he had to worry about how he would get home with Devon in tow.
He slowed his ride down and crept along. Peeking through the buildings he could see the converging horde that had just finished off the young family in the SUV. The pack of monsters were moving towards the noise made by the slowly rotating tires and engine. The easy route up to Cliff and Tina’s place was cut off. Now the only way across was through the horde of zombies.
There were too many for Frank to take care of by himself. The grounds of the parking lot were wide open. There wasn’t a good place to force them to funnel through so they could easily pick them off without worry of being surrounded and attacked from behind. There was definitely no time to set something up like that. Devon could be on the brink and every second counted. Frank and Sara had come to the same conclusion as Jim and were ready for a fight.
“Let’s see if you can handle these,” Frank said as he readied an assault rifle for Jim. He forced the newly loaded magazine into the bottom of the gun.
“Each pull of the trigger will fire a round. Take your time, aim and squeeze. You get excited, fire without aiming and you’ll empty the magazine without making a single kill.”
“Got it,” Jim said as he crushed the brakes and put the PT into park, he took the gun from Frank and popped open his door. The gun looked as deadly as it felt in Jim’s hands. He copied every action movie he had ever seen and stood feet shoulder-width apart, pulled the gun tight against his shoulder and aimed down range at the mass of dead bodies on their way to feed. Frank and Sara exited on the passenger’s side. She had the Stranger’s shotgun and Frank had his SKS. Frank led the barrage and took down the infected that sprinted towards them.
Jim sighted in his first zombie. It was a husky young adult with greasy hair. Well, husky was the nice way to say the zombie was a chunky butted, basement dwelling, pizza faced, gamer, but it wasn’t Jim’s style to speak ill of the dead. Jim squeezed the trigger.
The rifle had some kick, but it was deadly accurate. The husky zombie had its head tilted back and its mouth was agape. Jim’s round hit it in the teeth and ripped out the back of its skull. It fell to the ground and tripped up the creatures directly behind it. Jim’s next six shots weren’t as lucky. He punctured a few shoulders, a chest, one hand and a neck. Sara cycled through her six shots and the bullets pulverized the front of the infected’s offensive line. Frank was spot on and downed thirty in as many seconds.
Movement at the window of Tina and Cliff’s apartment caught Jim’s attention. The couple pulled up the blinds and watched as the three of them unloaded on the approaching horde. It almost seemed unfair. The dead marched unfazed and headlong toward their doom. It looked like Jim and his crew were cheating. As if they had somehow tricked the army of the dead into walking straight into the wall of lead crashing into them.
Sara’s shotgun clicked empty so she tossed it into the backseat and pulled the Glock. The shotgun sledgehammered her shoulder every time she fired it. The Glock was as smooth as silk in comparison. Its light body felt amazing in her nimble hands. Half of her shots hit their targets. The horde was thinning out. Down to stragglers and slow pokes. The last of the zombies suffered from broken legs or were missing too much muscle on their thighs and calves to move efficiently.
The crew’s guns clicked empty. Jim set the rifle in the driver’s seat and grabbed his spear. He made a beeline for the closest infected and had to jump over a two-foot high mountain of mangled meat to get to them. He drove the blade of his spear through the remaining zombies. Every thrust was a bullseye. Jim’s kill ratio was much higher with this stick and knife than with the modern day weapon of war. He danced light on his toes to avoid tripping on the splayed out arms and legs that covered the ground. Sara joined him and splattered the last of the infected with a punishing downward swing. The smell of gun smoke hung heavy in the air. A light gray cloud of gunsmoke was carried away and caught up in the breeze. It became so quiet that it was eerie. Jim turned three sixty and double checked the dead freaks that laid at his feet.
“That wasn’t so bad. With a little practice and a ton of ammo we could clear this area out. Just like that church.” Sara spoke louder than normal. The gunshots had bombarded her eardrums. Frank was being proactive and took a seat behind the wheel of the PT and drove the vehicle over to a parking spot closest to the stairway. The ringing in Jim’s ears faded with every passing second as he followed Sara back to the car.
Jim knew that a little encouragement went a long way to lift someone’s spirits, and it seemed as good a time as any to pass some praise around. “Good job…” he said as he placed his hand on Sara’s shoulder. “…and thank you for coming with us. I don’t think we could have done it without you.”
Sara’s face went flush immediately. It was such a small thing that he said to her, but it was exactly what she needed to hear. The day’s events were compounding and had begun to pile up. It was taking the form of a stress migraine. Jim’s gentle touch and sincere tone helped soften the pounding behind her eyes. She prided herself on being tougher than most, but the day had beaten her down. She tried to respond with the same level of sincerity but her words got tongue tied and came out, “Yeah, no. I mean you’re welcome.” She smiled at Jim. His five o’clock shadow added to the rugged look his clothes and injuries had created. She tried to imagine how he looked earlier when he was the clean cut appliance salesman that he claimed to be, but she couldn’t picture it. She liked this manlier version better. The leather jacket, spear and blood splatter made him look like an action hero instead of the boring father of two that he really was.
They were halfway to the car when they both heard the sounds of something scratching at a window. It was coming from the SUV on the other side of the lot. It took Jim a second to focus, but then it became clear that something was clawing at the blood soaked windows.
“You go help Frank with the guns. I’ll take care of it.” Jim gave Sara one last pat on the back before he jogged over to the SUV. He didn’t know what to expect, but what he saw broke his heart. He recognized the husband from the pool. He was dead, really dead, maybe from the crash it was hard to tell. A chunk of white bone peeked out from his skin just under his hairline. Something had crushed his skull and brain. The children and wife had been turned. Their m
angled bodies were twisted messes trying to climb over the front seats. They wanted to get out the busted driver’s window and rip Jim to shreds. Jim was sick of seeing women and children like this. The scene was as horrific as any he had come across that day.
“Goddamn it!” Jim opened the door so he could get a clear shot. There was no time to pay his respects. The infected family were on their way to get him. When the deed was done and the zombies were removed from their hell Jim thought that he was going to puke, but there wasn’t anything in his stomach. His muscles flexed and he dry heaved. He powered through the urge and redirected his focus. He had to get on to his next job. He pulled himself from the zombies and jogged back to the PT Cruiser.
Jim met back up with Frank and Sara as they unloaded the bags full of guns and ammo. He picked up his and they stomped up the flight of stairs. Cliff and Tina were at the top of the landing waiting to help them over the set of rails.
“Looks like it was a good run. Did you get everything on the list?” Tina said as she reached for the first bag.
“Yes, how’s Devon?” Sara asked as she passed her bag.
“He’s asleep and stable.” Tina grunted as the weight of the heavy bag strained her lower back.
“You guys run into any trouble?” Cliff helped his wife pull Sara’s bag over the rail.
“A little,” Frank fought the hundred pounds of gear up the last few steps. Sara flung her thin leg over the rail and made the transition to the landing. Cliff and Tina helped the two men with their bags and Frank made it onto the landing after Sara.
Jim unfastened his backpack and handed it to Tina, “Here’s the medical supplies.” Tina took the backpack and headed straight into the apartment to begin prepping for Devon’s surgery.
“What’s in these?” Cliff asked as he dragged two of the canvas duffle bags through his entryway.
