by Ray Wallace
He shrugged, returning her gaze, enjoying the way her eyes reflected the light.
"I'm not sure. He worries me, though."
"He saved my life. And Mitchell's."
"I know. But still... I don't trust him."
"I guess I can understand why you might feel that way,” said Amanda, “after the way you two met."
Eric could vividly recall the feel of the blade against his neck. Sometimes, he even dreamed about it.
"And, yeah," Amanda went on, "he's a little odd." It was her turn to shrug. "I guess I'm just glad he's on our side, that he wants to help out."
Your side, maybe, thought Eric. Although, he wasn't entirely sure of that either.
He took a sip from his drink, found what comfort he could in the warmth of the alcohol as it made its way down his throat and into his body. A flash of lightning briefly illuminated a nearby window. Then came the thunder. He thought about Simon out there, searching for... What exactly? A zombie to kill? The guy sure seemed to enjoy himself whenever he put one of the creatures down.
Maybe you're being too hard on him. Besides, would you rather be the one out there checking things out?
The answer to that question was a simple one:
No, of course not.
He didn't think it was necessary for any of them to be wandering around in the storm right now. They'd seen few zombies and not a single living person during the final half mile of their approach to the house. In this weather, he figured the chances of them having any unexpected visitors were pretty low. Again, though, whatever got Simon out of the house...
"You want any more?" asked Amanda, wiggling her cup back and forth.
Eric considered the idea for a moment then shook his head. The last thing he needed in the morning was a hangover.
“No, I'm good.”
“Are you really?”
Amanda slid across the couch so that she was sitting right next to him. Then she leaned in and pressed her lips against his, taking him completely by surprise.
At first, he just sat there, not sure how he should respond. He figured it out soon enough, though, put an arm around her, closed his eyes, and immersed himself in the moment. Eventually, she pulled back and looked at him, gave him a smile.
"I've been wanting to do that for a while," she whispered.
"Have you now?"
"Uh-huh."
"Funny, I've been wanting to do the same thing."
As the rain continued to drum on the roof and tap at the windows, Amanda leaned in and kissed him again.
Thursday, August 13th
Rachel lay there staring at the ceiling, trying to think of a reason to get out of bed, a reason to do much of anything. She'd spent more and more time sleeping over the past week or so. Which was fine with her. Because when she wasn't sleeping, she'd find herself thinking about Alex. The friend she'd hardly known. The friend to whom she'd made a promise. A promise, as it turned out, she'd had to keep.
Like so many others, Alex had succumbed to the plague. After Rachel had used her gun to do what needed to be done, she'd covered her friend with a blanket and left the house. Then she’d made her way back to the motel, had seen plenty of zombies along the way. Feeling numb inside, she’d paid them little attention. And for whatever reason, they had paid her little attention in return.
Later that afternoon, she'd made her way over to a small supermarket a few blocks over, took whatever she wanted when she realized there was no one around to stop her. Then she returned to her room once again, got into bed and watched TV, not really caring what was on, just wanting to hear the sound of a human voice. Her friend's death had left her in a black mood, one she tried to escape through sleep. When she did she dreamed of blueberry pancakes, blood red skies, and burning cities.
And the dead, of course. Always the dead.
The zombies didn't bother her. She half-expected them to break into the room, tear her limb from limb, make a feast of her flesh. On occasion, she'd see a shadow move across the curtain covering the window, hear the thump of a hand on the door. She'd imagine it bursting inward, a crowd of zombies forcing their way in, growling and moaning as they surrounded her and fell upon her. But it never happened.
Thursday the thirteenth, she realized when she saw the date printed across the bottom of the TV screen, surprised that so much time had passed since she left California.
Summoning her will, she climbed out of bed, stood there in her underwear, lifted her arm and gave herself a sniff.
Getting a little ripe. Keep this up and you'll smell like one of those dead things before long.
She took a shower, grateful the water and the electricity still worked here. On TV, they'd talked about widespread blackouts. She could only assume it was a matter of time before the same fate befell Castle Creek.
Standing beneath the spray of warm water, she toyed with the idea of leaving this place, knew she'd have to at some point, probably sooner than later.
I guess I can't just lie around here forever.
Much to her surprise, she felt a sudden urge to get out of there, not just the room where she'd spent so much time wallowing in her grief but the town itself.
If I stay, there's a good chance I'll die here.
A half-an-hour later found her dressed and headed for the door, suitcase in hand. Grabbing the doorknob, she took a moment to ask herself if she was sure about this.
Hell, I'm not sure about anything anymore.
Opening the door, she stepped out into the heat and searing light of the midday sun.
The inside of the car was like a sauna. She started the engine and cranked up the AC, put on her sunglasses and drove across the parking lot. At the exit, she stopped as she tried to decide which way she should go.
Eenie meenie miney mo...
Traveling west certainly wasn't an option. Judging from the reports she'd seen on TV, none of the other directions seemed any more promising. There was Michigan, of course, or “the zone” as the media often referred to it, nearly an entire state that had been put under quarantine by the military during the early days of the outbreak. The media had also made it clear, however, that outsiders weren't exactly welcome there.
East for now, she told herself. Until a better idea comes along.
At the moment, all that really mattered was taking action, putting some distance between herself and the source of the darkness that had settled over her. So she hung a right and drove toward the main thoroughfare running through the center of town. Along the way, she did what she could to avoid running over the occasional zombie that stumbled into her path as she didn't want to risk damaging the car. A couple of minutes into her drive, she was surprised when what she had taken for another of the living dead raised its hands over its head, waving for her to stop.
She pulled up next to the man—he had to be in his late sixties or early seventies, judging by the looks of him—and lowered the window, leaving the car in gear in case the guy meant trouble.
"Have you been sick?" he asked unexpectedly.
"Yes…" she told him. "But I got better."
"Same here." He smiled. "And have you figured it out? Do you know what it means?"
She fought the urge to hit the gas and drive away. "I have no idea what you’re talking about."
"In that case… I've got good news and I've got bad news. Which do you want to hear first?"
Friday, August 14th
Zander was dead. She still couldn't get her head around it. He'd been so young. So full of life. So...
Beautiful.
She couldn't shake the image of the zombie leaning in, burying its teeth into his neck, tearing a chunk of skin and muscle free. Ramos had hurried over and shot the zombie in the head. But it was too late—the damage had been done.
Zander had brought his hand up and clamped it over the wound. There was no stopping the blood pouring through his fingers, though, running in a wide, red stream down his arm and dripping off his elbow. He fell to his knees then toppl
ed to the ground where he lay next to the zombie that had attacked him.
Susanna had stood there, horrified, watching the life go out of him. They'd made eye contact at the end, just before his gaze had drifted away to stare at something only he could see. Ramos and Davide had been beside themselves, shouting and cursing, the latter firing his gun wildly into the trees from where the group of zombies had emerged. There had been five of the creatures in all. Four of them had been put down in quick succession. Zander had moved up close to the last of them, stuck his gun in its face and—
Click.
Misfire.
The zombie—a particularly fresh looking specimen—had lunged at Zander, took hold of him and bit into his neck before he'd even started to back away.
It had all taken place while Susanna and her companions had been out wandering the area surrounding Lawrence's estate, an activity that allowed them to alleviate their boredom, to channel the fears and anxieties that crept up on them a little more each day as the world descended ever further into chaos.
Two days after Zander's death, Susanna still found herself incapable of thinking about much of anything else. Every time she closed her eyes, there it was, the expression on his face as the life went out of him. She sat on the edge of the bed, a blanket draped over her shoulders, stared at the bottle of wine and the much smaller bottle of pills on the nightstand, recalled the sweet oblivion from which she'd recently awakened.
Take enough of them and it can last forever…
Is that what she wanted? To join Zander in death? To put an end to all of the awful feelings swirling around inside of her once and for all? She was surprised by the extent to which his passing had affected her, considering the short period of time she'd known him. When he was around, though, he'd been able to make her forget any of her concerns, any of the fears that may have haunted her. She realized that he'd come to represent one of the few bright spots for her in a world sinking ever deeper into a dark and devouring abyss.
She looked at the wine and the pills, then shifted her gaze to the alarm clock: 8:47 AM.
As she tried to imagine what the day ahead might have in store for her—along with all the days to follow—there came a knock at the door.
"Go away." She was in no mood to speak to anyone.
The knob turned and the door swung open.
Ramos stood in the doorway, Davide right behind him. They carried their weapons with them, were dressed in their fatigues and their black tank tops.
Susanna gave them a sullen look. “I told you to go away.”
Ramos shook his head. "We're not going anywhere. Not without you."
She considered shouting at them, cursing them, anything to make them leave. Instead, she got to her feet, stood there with the blanket wrapped around her, looked at them in a way that had intimidated many a high-powered businessman over the years.
“What part of go away don't you—”
"There's a lot more of those monsters out there." It was Davide who spoke this time. "And we plan on killing as many of them as we can."
"For Zander," said Ramos.
There was silence then as Susanna stared at the two men.
"Okay, then. Give me fifteen minutes."
Ramos nodded his head and pulled the door closed.
Susanna let the blanket fall to the floor then went into the bathroom and started the shower. By the time she went downstairs, armed and outfitted for the hunt, she realized that her grief had morphed into something else, something tempered by anger and a need for revenge. It was a feeling she welcomed, one that she put to good use.
Saturday, August 15th
Food was scarce and the zombie was hungry. It hadn't eaten in a long time. Just how long, it wasn't quite sure. Much as it couldn't remember its name or the names of anyone it had known before it had been turned into this shambling, ravenous thing, it could not recall the last time it had experienced the ephemeral pleasure that came with ingesting the warm, succulent viscera of the living. The memory had been lost within the red haze permeating the landscape of its mind—or what was left of it. At the moment, all it knew for certain was that food was scarce and that it was hungry.
Maybe it could feed upon the others, the ones that were like it, that were driven by the same hunger. Somehow, though, it knew that to do so would result in nothing more than wasted energy, that it would benefit in no way from such an undertaking. Only the flesh of the living would sustain this strange sort of un-life it had been given. And how, exactly, had it managed to acquire this new mode of existence? Again, it had no idea. Such concepts were far beyond its ability to comprehend.
The zombie staggered along one street after another, a member of a group making its way through that particular section of the city. A number of buildings showed signs of extensive fire damage, buildings where the living had once congregated by the hundreds, empty now, inhabited by nothing but ghosts and dead dreams. They held nothing that could be eaten, nothing that could satiate the hunger in even the smallest imaginable way.
Soon after the fading darkness gave way to morning light, the zombie felt a sudden urge to move in a very specific direction, as though something called to it, summoning it with a siren song it found impossible to resist. And so it changed course, headed in this new direction, as did the other members of the group it had accompanied. The urge grew stronger as the zombie walked, as it drew slowly but inexorably nearer the source of the summoning.
A large crowd had gathered in the park near the center of the city, an unruly mob of the undead. There came the crack! of gunfire. And the zombie knew… There was food to be found here, the only kind that could appease the hunger, the only kind that mattered.
Without hesitation or any concern for its personal welfare, the zombie entered the park, made its way among the other moaning, groaning figures that had gathered there, zeroing in on the shouting it could hear and the repetitive sound of gunfire. The zombie was incapable of experiencing emotion. But even if it could, it would have had no reason to worry. By the time it got anywhere near the center of the crowd, the five humans responsible for the shooting had run out of ammunition, the surrounding mass of the undead having easily absorbed any damage the guns had been able to inflict. Amid screams of pain, terror, and defiance, the humans were brought down. And as the zombies feasted, the red haze of their hunger dissipated ever so slightly, allowing minute traces of coherent thought to take hold, wispy strands of imagery to coalesce into rudimentary memories.
Casey.
The name flickered through the zombie's mind, there and then gone again. A momentary distraction, nothing more. As if to dislodge the thought—the word, the name—the zombie shook its head and continued to chew upon the glistening length of intestine it had crammed into its mouth, eager to appease the demands of the hunger.
Sunday, August 16th
Pastor Lewis stared out over the congregation filling the pews before him. The vaulted ceiling of the church loomed high overhead, filled with shadows where the natural lighting coming in through the windows and the open doors couldn't reach. It was hot inside the building. The pastor found himself wiping at his brow with a cloth every few minutes. He didn't mind the conditions brought about by the lack of electricity, though. The heat, he knew, would lull many of those in attendance into a mild stupor, would make them more receptive to the guiding influence of the Holy Spirit and the message he wished to impart on this day.
"The End Times are upon us, my brothers and sisters." He uttered the words with as much force and conviction as he could muster. "Those who have followed the teachings of the Good Book know full well the events of recent weeks have been foretold. Satan's army has risen. The final battle draws near. Soon, the angelic hosts will descend to vanquish the forces of darkness, to send them back into the pit from where they emerged. Until then, as stewards of the Earth, it is our sacred duty to take up the fight, to prove ourselves worthy in the eyes of God."
An amen! went up from many of those gathere
d within the church. Others nodded their heads in agreement. A few, he supposed, may have actually been nodding off. He couldn't blame them. The heat was a truly oppressive thing, intent on sapping the strength from even the most able-bodied of those in attendance.
I should probably try to keep this short.
After speaking for another ten minutes or so, he descended from the podium, made his way outside where he shook hands and exchanged pleasantries with a number of those who'd attended the sermon. Undoubtedly, it was less stifling on the lawn in front of the church. One would be hard pressed to refer to the morning air as “cool,” though. Temperatures had risen into the mid-nineties with regularity over the past week or so. At just past ten o'clock in the morning, the heat that would claim the afternoon had already started to settle in.
A few days earlier, after they'd conquered and secured this particular town, some of the pastor’s followers had retrieved a number of gas generators from a nearby hardware superstore. For the most part, they'd been put to use in the homes where people had chosen to stay, including the one where Pastor Lewis had taken up residence just down the street from the church.
From somewhere in the distance came the distinctive sound of gunfire, music to the pastor's ears as he knew it signified the death of at least one more demonic entity.
Brother Randall had organized a Perimeter Patrol, groups of armed men and women whose sole job was to prevent any of the undead from entering the town. And, so far, it had done its job exceedingly well. As far as Pastor Lewis knew, only two of the awful creatures had infiltrated the town since the Patrol's inception. And they'd been handled easily enough, their black souls sent back to Hell where they belonged.
With each passing day, Pastor Lewis became increasingly grateful for Randall's presence. It turned out the man was a Gulf War veteran. He’d proven himself invaluable as far as the policing and military aspects of their little community were concerned. The pastor had started to wonder what he'd do without him. More and more, the man's particular skill set had proved its usefulness.
