Like rats, they crept around the florist’s shop, crossed a muddy alley and slipped down the side of another building.
“What are we going to do without Stu?” Aaron asked, his voice warbling.
“It’s alright, he got away,” Jenn assured him. She would have known if he hadn’t. It was impossible for someone to stifle their screams as they were being eaten alive. Jenn had heard enough of those screams to know this for a fact. Her earliest memory was a hazy series of moving black and white pictures. Whenever someone said the words “Remember when…” Jenn’s mind always went back to it and every time she felt the same insidious, deep fear.
It was the memory of her mom being torn to pieces by a swarm of the dead. Jenn had been twenty feet from her, hiding practically in plain sight beneath a bicycle. Her mom’s screams had been so loud that even now, years later, they still echoed inside Jenn’s head and as always when the memory struck her, a wave of goosebumps broke out on her arms.
She rubbed them away. “Come on,” she whispered and made her way around the building. “We’ll meet him at the harbor.” They still had a quarter mile to go; a very dangerous quarter mile. They slunk along hedges, slipped through empty sewer pipes and crawled through gutters and by the time they got close, they were both filthy.
Stu was nowhere in sight, but she knew in her heart he would show. In the meantime they hid. Hiding was smart and it was what she did best. She was small and skinny—undernourished and underdeveloped. At fifteen she still had the hips of a boy, while her breasts were almost nonexistent.
She thought there was something wrong with her. Then again, she thought there was something wrong with all of them. The world and everything in it was dying. Everyone knew that.
After putting Aaron in a dust-filmed Chrysler and warning him not to move until she said so, she went to a Toyota whose windows were so filthy that nothing could be seen inside. There was no telling how long their wait would be, so she fished around the floorboards and came up with a magazine.
The pages made crackling sounds as she pulled them apart and gazed at the glossy pictures of a world that was nothing remotely like the world she lived in. In the magazine world, the men were strong, clean-shaven and handsome, while the women were always stunningly beautiful. Their teeth were always straight and white, their skin silky-smooth, their hair perfect.
They were all so…she didn’t know the word “elegant,” and had to settle for pretty.
The world these pretty people lived in was just as perfect as they were. The streets were clean enough to eat off, the cars shone and sparkled like ice, and the buildings were fantastic monuments that seemed eternal.
Everything was the opposite in Jenn’s dying world. When she inched up to check on Aaron, she saw a world that was in the long process of deteriorating into nothing.
There was no flash or shine to the cars; their tires had long since deflated and their engines had seized. Even if there was gas to put in them, they would never move again. And even if they could move, twelve winters had buckled the streets, turning them craggy. Now weeds, shrubs and even trees grew right up out of the gaping potholes and the long, widening cracks. In some places the streets were simply gone. Flash floods had swallowed them, leaving behind mini-canyons.
She sighed as she slunk back down; she liked the magazine world better than her own world. The magazine world was magical, while hers was diseased.
One of the pictures in the magazine, that of a teenage boy on a skateboard, called to her. The boy seemed to be flying on the board, his long clean, brown hair flowing behind him, a look of joy on his grinning face. She knew what skateboards were, but like everything else, they seemed to have lost their magic. They no longer flew; they were lucky to roll anymore.
The picture went into a Ziplock bag in her pack along with a growing stack of others. She was just pulling the pack back on when the silence was broken by a long, loud, creaking noise.
It was the frightfully urgent sound of a rusted door opening. It had to be Aaron. Slowly, Jenn eased up and peeked through the dirty window of the Toyota and saw Aaron, standing half-in and half-out of the Chrysler, one arm up as if he were about to wave. Thirty feet beyond him was Stu, slunk down against the side of a building and pointing with sharp jabs to Aaron’s right at one of the dead that had been standing in the shadows of a Jiffy Lube.
The beast had heard the car door and was now peering out with rage-filled eyes.
Aaron froze in fear, a look of utter panic on his face. He stood only fifteen paces away from it and Jenn could see, plain as day, the scream building in his throat.
Chapter 2
Stuart Currans
Stu swore when he saw Aaron getting out of the car. It wasn’t as if this was Aaron’s first trip out of the complex. And he had been briefed on what to do in case they ran into one of the dead, which was exactly what was practically scraping its ugly head on the eaves of the Jiffy Lube.
In Stu’s mind it should have been an easy trip. A quiet one. It was only a mile from the apartment complex to the docks where the group stashed a couple of canoes and a small sailboat. Once on the water, they’d be perfectly safe…mostly. It wasn’t unheard of in San Francisco for a strange squall to suddenly spring up out of nowhere, especially at this time of year.
As far as expeditions went, this should have been one of the easier ones. It was why he had allowed Aaron to come at all. Jenn was a steady girl, quick and smart. When the Coven had suggested that she go, it had been a no-brainer. It should have been the same with Aaron. He had grown up in the apocalypse, and should’ve known better than to make himself a target with the dead around.
Still, Aaron wasn’t in the worst of positions. The creature hadn’t yet spotted him. Whether out of fear, instinct or naked self-preservation, Aaron had turned to stone and now it would be a battle between his patience and the zombie’s hunger. If it was hungry enough, it would start to turn in small circles, searching for whatever had made the sound.
Like all of the dead, its eyesight was terrible and its sense of smell almost nonexistent. Their hearing on the other hand was nearly perfect. It was why the group stressed the need for quiet at all times.
Stu gave Aaron a fifty-fifty chance and had he been an adult, Stu would have let the moment play out, only he knew that if something happened to Aaron he would never hear the end of it from his mother. Miss Shay would squawk and squawk, and would she take any responsibility for the fact that she had babied Aaron and coddled him too much? No. Aaron was unreliable because of her over-protective mothering.
“But does she listen to me?” he griped as he hefted his crossbow. Practically everyone who left the complex carried a crossbow. Everyone who could be trusted with one that is. Aaron didn’t have one.
The bow Stu carried was a brute. It was a Ravin R15 and it could fire a steel bolt at 425 feet per second, striking with 165 pounds of kinetic energy. As impressive as that sounded, the bolt seemed small and weak compared to the beast, which was a foul, naked creature with skin like grey oatmeal, stunted nubs for fingers and jagged broken teeth set in black gums.
It wasn’t the biggest zombie he had seen. No, the record-holder was a nine-and a-half-foot tall monster that was known as Frank, which was short for Frankenstein. He had received his name not just because of his great size. Frank also had a huge scar running across its forehead where he’d been shot with a .45 caliber round by a man who didn’t live very long after pulling the trigger.
When Stu had come across Frank a few months back, he’d run up a tree and stayed there for four hours and although he could have taken a few shots with the Ravin, he didn’t bother. If a bullet to the head couldn’t kill Frank, a bolt probably wouldn’t either.
Since then he had started carrying a .357 Magnum. As he only had three rounds of ammo it was his weapon in case of an utter emergency, which this was not. He also had a climber’s axe. It was two and a half feet long with a deadly seven-inch spike at the end. It was strong and durable a
nd had yet to be tested against the dead and he hoped it never would be. Getting within arm’s reach of one of the beasts was a nightmare for him.
The axe hung from his belt, swinging in a cool wind. That same wind whipped his long brown hair about his face as he took aim with the Ravin and fired at the creature. Faster than the eye could follow, the bolt flew through the air and caught the beast in the cheek, snapping its head back.
The bolt did nothing but make it angry and with a scream of rage that echoed through the empty streets, the creature charged at Stu.
There was an unusual number of zombies in the town, and with them stirred up, he knew he couldn’t just run again, blundering from one to the next. He had to take this one out if he could. Unfortunately, the Ravin took a good seven seconds to load and he only had three seconds before the creature was on him.
“Get back in the car,” he snapped at Aaron as he sprinted around the truck twice, and then around the Toyota Jenn was hiding in, opening a bit of a lead on the moaning beast. It was fast but, like the rest, clumsy and fell a lot. When he could, Stu raced back to the truck, climbed in one side and left the truck door open, hoping that the dead thing would follow him inside.
The creature paused, staring in at Stu with its muddy eyes; its breath, all rot and horror, washed over him, making him gag. The truck seemed like a clown-car compared to the huge zombie. Stu counted on it coming in after him where it would get stuck, hopefully long enough for Stu to get his crossbow ready to fire again.
Instead, the creature stuck a long grey arm into the truck, reaching for him. Stu backed as far away as he could, scrambling for the button to unlock the door. He pressed it repeatedly, but nothing happened. The groping hand touched his left boot and passed right over it, perhaps searching for something with more of a human feel.
In the footwell was an old school bag, its many pockets unzippered and hanging open like steel-teethed mouths. Stu grabbed it and shoved it toward the hand. A second later, the bag was ripped out of sight. The beast took a bite out of it before it even knew what it was. With a bellow of rage, it tossed the bag aside, grabbed the truck’s door and threw its unholy strength against it. There came a scream of metal as the door bent back further than Stu thought possible, and a moment later the hinges broke and the door swung free.
Still in a rage, the dead creature slammed the door onto the roof of the truck, crumpling it in. It then flung the door aside like it was tossing a paper plate. “Holy crap,” Stu hissed, realizing that if it wanted to, the zombie could pull the truck apart with him still in it.
Using his climber’s axe, he smashed out the window of the door he was pressed against and wiggled through to spill out onto the broken asphalt just as the zombie plunged into the truck after him. Stu actually grinned, knowing the beast would never get through the window. He took out a bolt for the crossbow, thinking he had plenty of time, but through some cruel trick of fate, the door popped open as the beast slammed its head against it.
With another curse, Stu scrambled to load his crossbow. Bracing it with his feet, he heaved back on the cable until it locked in place. Next, he fitted the bolt into the groove, sliding it all the way back so he wouldn’t waste any of the kinetic energy now stored in the cable.
By then, the beast was semi-stuck. It was clawing its huge frame through the back seat like some grotesque swimmer.
This gave Stu time to line up a shot. Although he was close, his target, the creature’s forehead, was small, seven inches by six. Still, he should not have missed, but he did. With the creature scrambling and flailing, its head bobbing up and down as it struggled, the bolt kicked off its temple, leaving a gash that leaked black blood. A second later the beast piled onto the pavement right in front of Stu, who was cocking back the cable a second time. He managed to pull it into place but there was no time to put the bolt in the groove as the zombie struggled to its feet.
He thought that he would have to make another run around the cars, but then Jenn was there, standing on the roof of the truck, aiming her own crossbow. She was small, probably not more than ninety pounds and her bow was correspondingly smaller. He remembered the day she had come back from scrounging with it three years earlier; she couldn’t reload it by herself and after shooting it, she had to ask around for someone to pull the cable back for her.
Regardless of her strength, she was an excellent shot and when she fired, her bolt thudded home, piercing the back of the thing’s head. The zombie let out a long gasping breath and turned slowly. There was no telling what was going to happen next. Sometimes the beasts ignored even these sorts of headshots, sometimes they only made them angrier. In this case, it fell face first onto the street, its skull cracking wide open, spilling a sludge of black goo onto the street.
Instead of celebrating her first zombie kill, Jenn dropped into a crouch and gazed all around, her blue eyes at sharp slits. The danger hadn’t passed, and it wouldn’t pass until they were safe behind the walls of Alcatraz. Anything could still happen. “Do you see any more of them?” Stu asked in a low voice.
She shook her head and slid down off the truck. They both turned to Aaron, who slowly climbed out of the Chrysler, his head hung low. “I saw you and I thought it was safe,” was his excuse.
Jenn walked up and punched him in the arm hard enough to make him wince. “I told you to wait until I said it was clear. I have half a mind to leave you right here until we get back.”
“He gets one screw-up, Jenn,” Stu said. “The next time, the dead will take care of him for us. Let’s get out of sight for a few minutes.”
They hurried into the Jiffy Lube.
While Aaron watched the back, Stu and Jenn kept an eye on the street, which remained still and quiet, save for a gathering of thin, ugly crows. The birds flitted onto sagging telephone lines and sat staring at the body of the dead beast. It wouldn’t be long before they began to pull strips of rancid flesh from it.
“What did they do in a Jiffy Lub-ey?” Jenn asked, glancing around at the bays and the black pits set into the concrete floor. “Something about cars, right?”
“It’s pronounced lube and yes, they’d work on cars. I think, like repairing them or something. By the way, that was a hell of a shot. What would you’ve done if you missed?”
She blushed and then laughed. “I would’ve let him eat you.” Even though it was a joke, it unnerved him a bit and their talk dried up.
Stu kept them holed up for half an hour before he chanced the street again, heading for the docks, going slower than before. He kept to the shaded side of the street and moved warily, his head constantly on a swivel. He knew the dead about as well as anyone. The local packs were predictable, lumbering from grazing point to grazing point in conjunction with the sun. Now that the days were growing colder, they spent more time in open fields, eating grass, berries and nuts. They were omnivores, and about the only thing they didn’t eat were themselves.
As it was just after noon, he knew that the Langendorf Park pack would have trudged up into the open hills above Highway 444, leaving them a straight shot to the docks…unless there were more strays and of course, there were. Stu spotted two more small groups, both times before they themselves were spotted. He skirted around them and came at Pelican Harbor from the south. A block from the actual docks was a Mexican restaurant that had once been a bank. The group kept their few watercraft inside the building.
Before the apocalypse, the harbor had been home to thousands of boats, from dinghies to million-dollar yachts, but when the dead came the marinas emptied out as people looked to the oceans for safety. They left and they never came back, and where they went, no one knew. Stu liked to think there was a zombie-free island out in the middle of the Pacific where people lived happy lives.
Cautious as always, Stu entered the restaurant alone. When he found it deserted, he called the others over. Aaron looked at the sailboat sitting on its trailer almost as if it were a joke. “That’s it? Really? It looks kinda small, don’t you think?” I
t was very small, only thirteen feet long and four feet across. “Puffer?” Aaron asked, reading the word stenciled on the back. “Is this a toy? Or like a kiddie boat?”
“It’s a real boat,” Stu growled. “And it’ll be fine. I’ve been on this thing dozens of times. It’s a good boat. Just do what I say and don’t do anything stupid.” He walked to the front of the trailer and started pulling. Not only was the boat very small, it was also light and Stu could handle it and the trailer single-handedly.
As he hauled it down to the boat ramp, Jenn, steady as always, kept watch while Aaron just stared at the boat, his face pale. Stu clamped him on the shoulder. “It’ll be fun. You’ll see.”
Thankfully, the winds were calm that morning and the bay was no choppier than the water in a three-year old’s bath. It made for an easy time.
Aaron ended up loving the little craft and after twenty minutes was scampering around it like an old hand. Jenn had the opposite reaction. Although it wasn’t her first time on board, she held onto the sides and was generally reluctant to move.
When Stu asked her what was wrong, she answered, “You saw the signs. Don’t pretend you didn’t. And besides, you know what happened last month, the same as me.” She paused, glanced at Aaron, who was sitting at the very front of the boat with his toes skimming the cold water, and whispered, “Ralph Duggin D-R-O-W-N-D. You ever think that maybe this boat is H-U-N-T-D?”
“Hunted?”
“No, haunted by the ghost of Ralph. I know for a fact that he didn’t wear a cross.” She released her hold on the side of the boat long enough to fish hers out from under her camouflage coat. The cross was large, about the length and width of her palm. It glittered in the sun as if it had been recently polished.
“Maybe he wasn’t a Christian.”
“It doesn’t matter if he had religion or not,” she insisted. “He didn’t wear a cross and he never paid attention to the signs. It was no wonder he…” She paused again to glance at Aaron. “It’s no wonder he D-I-D.”
Generation Z [Book ] Page 2
