by RWK Clark
We stared a few moments longer. Jace climbed into the Focus and tried the engine. “Out of gas. The body is fresh. The car ran itself dry. Let’s check out the house.”
Hand-in-hand we made our way up the walk that ran from the front door to the driveway. The door was locked, forcing Jace to jog back to the car and fetch the ring of keys from the ignition. There was only one key that resembled a residential door lock key, and it worked like a charm. Jace opened the door and we stepped into the air-conditioned interior of the home.
It was small but nicely furnished and clean. The living room was the first room we encountered. Off to the right was the master bedroom and straight ahead was a doorway which led to the kitchen/dining room. To the left was a hallway with four doors running along either side; bedrooms, of course. As it turned out it was two small, fully-furnished bedrooms, one of which was being used as an office, a bathroom with light pink accents, and a linen closet. Everything was working.
I wandered into the kitchen and looked more closely around. The kitchen was spotlessly clean, the dish strainer sporting only a saucer, glass, and fork. Everything was wiped to shining. In a small alcove-type area was a compact washer/dryer all-in-one unit. An empty clothes basket sat on top of it, bottom-side up.
To the right of those appliances featured a small corkboard which was fashioned to look like a washboard. Five small pieces of paper were push-pinned to the board. “Anna sees Dr. Hilliard on August 8, 2015 at 10:00am” was printed on a business card. “Call Judy 8pm Thurs.” was scrawled on the torn corner of a piece of wide-ruled notebook paper. The others sported similar notes.
The dining table was oak, round in design, with matching high-backed chairs. An ecru doily embellished the table; an ivory-colored ceramic dish sat in the middle of the doily.
The refrigerator was completely full. Everything from cold cuts to cheeses and milk were inside. The freezer had chicken, chops, and one package of steaks. My stomach grumbled loudly and painfully. I didn’t have time to worry about food right now.
Jace came around the corner. “Alicia, have you seen any sign of two people or more living here? I have only found clothes for a woman, no one else.”
I haven’t seen anything out here that would answer that question, except maybe the fact that the house is immaculately clean.” I cast my eyes over it once again. “Looks like a woman’s house to me.”
Jace walked over to a window at the rear of the kitchen, looking intently outside. I saddled up beside him. The backyard was fenced in, grassy, and it was obviously just forest beyond it. The nearest house in sight was so far up the road that you could only see the blue-gray roof hovering over the tall grass-line.
As if by ESP we both turned and walked out the front door. He went one way and I the other. We circled the house, taking in full view of our surroundings.
There was literally nothing for miles. It looked like we had found our base of operations, so to speak.
If nothing else, our new home.
CHAPTER 13
We figured the woman, whose name we discovered from postal items to be Belinda Smythe, had been caught unawares by a zombie who evacuated the water treatment plant. Once we had determined with a bit of surety that we were safe we retreated back into the small house, where Jace and I fortified the points of entry with strategically rearranged furnishings. A small back door to the rear of the kitchen was the door of choice for us when it came to any future coming and going. We barricaded it as minimally as possible without compromising safety.
Next, we went to the kitchen. I let Jace boot my laptop; if Belinda didn’t have Internet access we could use the hotspot on my cellular phone. It turned out she had no web access, so he proceeded to get things up and running according to plan “B”. I scavenged through the fridge and cupboards until I had gathered the makings of a good meal, and I went about preparing it while Jace went about surfing the web for any available recent news regarding the gray-faces or the possibility that anything was being done about it. It did no good; everything on line was at a virtual standstill. So far, aside from Belinda in the driveway, we seemed to be the only normal people around for miles.
I made a simple supper of hamburgers and potato chips with canned baked beans. It tasted simply gourmet, and by the way Jace moaned with every bite he thought so too. We talked little as we ate, but afterward he picked up the conversation right away.
“I am going to go outside in a bit and move Miss Smythe’s body, and give her a proper burial. It’s too strange that they resorted to violence on a living human being. She was so far out here in the sticks, and I can’t imagine that little woman doing much of anything to instigate an annoyance in one of those animals. I just don’t want any of them coming around just because there is a corpse laying out in the open.” He had a very grim look on his face, and I had to agree, even though I had no idea why. I just didn’t want them thinking this was the local café if they were eating live people now.
“What do you think spurned this on, Jace?” My voice was shaky, giving away the intense fear that was building up in my heart.
“I don’t know, but here’s my idea. At my place I have a microscope kit my dad got me for high school graduation. It’s a high quality set up, with all the accessories. I’m going to grab that, the new distillery machine, some clothes, and some other useful items. I have a great big duffle bag that should be able to get the stuff here safely; I’ll look in the garage to see if there is any gas in a can, you know, for a mower. If I can get Smythe’s car running I will feel better. Either way, I will leave when it’s good and dark to be a bit safer.” This concerned me, Jace venturing to his apartment alone, but the truth was we would need as many resources as possible, and that included the water filter system we had gone to so much trouble to steal. I could use a good scrubbing, that much I knew, and I was dying for a drink of good, cold water.
We hung out and talked about some of the possibilities which could have incited a zombie to eat a living human. We were both stumped when it came to the science and the details, but we both agreed it must have had something to do with the water supply being drained. It was too much of a coincidence that we drained the water and then subsequently discover a fresh human corpse so close to the water treatment facility. We may have been wrong, but that was all we could come up with for the time being.
∞
Around 8:15 Jace went out with a flashlight and dug through the garage. He located about two-and-a-half gallons of gas in a small five gallon can next to a push mower, which he put into the car right away. It turned over immediately, its sewing machine engine sounding top notch. As he fastened his seat belt I leaned in the driver’s side window.
“Jace, please…” My voice drifted off. I didn’t even want to say it out loud; I didn’t want to speak the worst into existence.
He nodded and looked me right in the eye. “I’ll be careful, Alicia. I’ll be extra careful. This car is going to make things so much easier. I’ll run right into anyone who is coming at me.”
I smiled grimly to show him I trusted him. He continued, “Now, when you go back in the house close all the vertical blinds; make sure they are turned upward so lights can’t be seen from the street. Close the drapes. Make sure all the doors are locked and blocked, just like we did it earlier, okay?” I didn’t answer. I was turning everything he said over in my mind. “Okay, Alicia?” He snapped me out of it with his tone.
“Okay, Jace. I’m on it.” He smiled and sighed with relief. “Now, I’ll be back before you know it, Cutie.” I couldn’t help but smile back. “Go on in. I’m not leaving until I know you are safe inside.”
I knew he had limited gas until he got to a station, so I turned and bolted nervously into the house. I locked the back door behind me and slid the heavy oak china hutch we were using for a barricade back into place. I then turned the vertical blinds upward and closed the curtains, just like Jace told me to. I then went to the living room, where I waved out the window at him. He slowly
started to back out, and I fixed the blinds and curtains on that window as well.
As I went from room to room repeating the task I couldn’t help but think. What if Jace didn’t come back? The thought sent a chill of terror through my body. I was hardly equipped to be alone in such a situation. While I was certainly smart enough I just am not the quick thinker in emergency situations that Jace was. What would I do? Where would I go? The thoughts prompted me to finish fixing the windows that much faster. I grabbed my cell and sat down in a stuffed rocker in the living room and attempted to dial my parents. They had been on vacation overseas, and were due back three hours ago. Maybe they would be okay.
The phone rang and rang, but I got no response. That was the house phone, however, so I still had hope. Next, I called my dad’s cell; it went right to voice mail. My mom’s did the same. My stomach sank; this was not a good sign. They never let their phones go dead or shut them off. They were too worried they would miss a call from me.
I leaned my head against the back of the rocker and forced myself to breathe. I began to reason with myself: I had no idea what was going on. For all I knew my parents had holed themselves up for safety and they were fine. I made a solid decision to not worry; it would get me nowhere, only make things worse.
I stood and turned on the television set: nothing. I began to flip through the channels and finally came to CNN; miraculously it was on the air. I turned up the volume just in time to hear this:
“…though we are locked up here in the studio. The CDC announced fourteen hours ago that the situation was, and is, rapidly deteriorating. Stay indoors; we have had no further word from them since, and until we receive such we will continue to recommend that no one, I repeat, no one, leave the safety of their homes or other accommodations. This is Richard Stanley with CNN. Stay tuned in for updates on the situation as we receive them.”
The remote control fell from my hand and I began to cry.
CHAPTER 14
I must’ve cried myself to sleep. I dreamed I was with Jace by the city center. We were leaving his apartment, and as we made our way to Belinda Smythe’s Focus we discovered it was gone.
“That’s right,” Jace turned to me and said in the darkness. “We rode our bikes, remember?”
Bikes? Even in the dream that sounded ridiculous. I didn’t own a bike. Did Jace? We began to look for our bikes when out of the darkness emerged a massive gray-face, a man of about six-foot eight, and he looked just as wide to me. His face and shirt were covered with blood and gore, and he was smiling with glee. Why was it so dark? Where were the street lights?
Before I could even open my mouth to scream he had ahold of Jace. Within a split second he was biting into his cheek. Jace screamed loudly, fighting and struggling, but he was no match for the soulless monster. The zombie took Jace’s head in both hands and squeezed. His skull gave way with a grotesque “Pop!” The monster got comfortable on the tarmac and began feasting on his fresh, warm brains.
I jerked awake violently, and running to the bathroom I threw up everything in my stomach, even dry heaving for what seemed like an hour after the remainder of my dinner was no more.
What was that noise? I heard something bang toward the back of the house. My stomach lurched again, but this time in sheer terror. I was holding my breath, afraid that whatever was trying to get in would here it and become even more determined to gain entry. Had I forgotten to close one of the blinds? I exhaled slowly and began to crawl out of the bathroom on all fours, gaining only an inch at a time in my fright.
“Bang!” There is was again. I strained to hear something, anything that would clarify who was outside. “Alicia, it’s Jace! Hurry up and let me in!”
I jumped up quickly and ran to the kitchen where I proceeded to push the china hutch out of the way. I peeked through the blinds to see Jace looking anxiously about in the darkness, his arms laden with two large canvas bags and the box containing the distillery. I undid the chain, flipped the deadbolt, and turned the knob lock. As I opened the door Jace pretty much fell into the house. He was sweating profusely and his eyes were wide with fear.
“Hurry, let’s get this place locked back up!” He dropped his bags, put the box on the kitchen table, and within seconds we had the barricade back in place. Jace plopped into a chair around the table, spent and trying to catch his breath.
“Jace, you scared the living daylights out of me! Are you okay? What happened? Did everything go smoothly?” He seemed to nod and shake his head at the same time. I sat across from him and tried to contain my anxiety until he was in the proper condition to communicate.
After about five full minutes he looked up at me. “Things have changed more than we thought, Alicia.” I said nothing, I just waited for him to elaborate, keeping my eyes on him the entire time. He had a look on his face that told me he was replaying whatever events had taken place during his absence, trying to make as much sense of it as he possibly could.
“They are dying.” He finally began to speak, and he made sure I was paying attention by maintaining eye contact.
What he said didn’t click with me right away. “Who is dying?” I was confused. Weren’t they already dead? Did he find others like us, others who had not been drinking the water?
He appeared to be getting a bit frustrated. “The zombies, Alicia. The zombies are dying!”
I stared at him. “How do you know? How can you be sure?”
“Well, as I was driving into town they were just everywhere; in the middle of the streets, along the sidewalks, everywhere! I noticed this one walking ahead of the car, directly in front of me, so I slowed down. You know, I didn’t want to get his attention at all. I was about twenty feet behind him when he suddenly just…fell down! He didn’t trip, didn’t stumble, he just…fell!” He pause long enough to take a breath before continuing. “I had to stop the car. I didn’t want to run him over, I mean there were so many of them I would’ve been dinner if I had, and Alicia, there were a few bodies, REAL bodies, laying around, too.”
“Jace! So what about the zombie that fell?” I was getting frustrated; he was all over the place and I was having a hard time keeping up with him.
He shook his head as if he could not believe the pictures floating around inside of it. “Well, the zombies that were walking just kept going. He didn’t matter. I waited for him to move. I thought it was a set up or something, like they’re smart enough to set me up.” He shook his head again. “After like ten minutes I went up to the body and, well, he was dead, Alicia. I kicked at him and he just seemed to fall apart. So I got back in the car and kept going. Within the next mile I watched five more of them do the exact same thing.”
“It’s the water, Jace.” That was all I could say. I knew it as sure as I knew my own name.
He nodded. “Yes, but I’m pretty sure the lack of water is why they are eating any living person they can find. I don’t know how that would fix things for them, but I can think of no other reason. It was like they were on a mission and nothing could deter them.”
“What happened, Jace? Why do you think this? You know something you are not telling me.” He continued to look in my eyes, as though he were weighing out the odds on whether I would come unglued if he shared the next bit of information with me.
“When I got to the Lucky Star Mart on Melrose I decided to gas up because there were so few of the gray-faces around there. I pulled the car up to the pump and started to put gas in. I don’t think I got five gallons into that car and they started to come at me. It was nothing like it has been. It was like they…smelled me, Alicia, and they were licking their lips; they were hungry.”
I didn’t know what to say; my blood had gone cold and my entire body felt frozen. They had made game of the living. We took the water and now they wanted our blood.
At least, that was how it looked. “What are we going to do, Jace?” I tried to keep the panic out of my voice. He was just as scared as I, and we needed to think and reason properly.
He w
as silent for longer than I would’ve liked, but I knew he needed to think. Finally he said, “I am going to set up the microscope and other lab stuff I brought from my place. I’m going to turn the office back bedroom into our ‘lab’ for the time being. I took some of the ‘flesh’ from the dead zombie, if that’s what you call it. It’s in a baggy in my duffel. I’m also going to take another water sample from here, if anything is in the tank. Belinda’s body should also be helpful; I collected a sample of her tissue before I buried her, we are going to test everything we can get our hands on. There has to be something that can give us some kind of specific idea why the zombies have changed their behavior.”
“But right now I am going to get the still up and running again. I need to clean up, I’m thirsty, and I’m sure you are too. The water inside was done, so we can transfer that to some clean containers. Try to see what you can find around here. The sooner we get more water filtered, the better.”
Thankful to have something to think about other than our current situation I jumped up from my chair and began to go through the cupboards. Over the refrigerator were to smaller cupboards which held large old-fashioned glass milk bottles, the kind with plastic rings around the neck for carrying. There were seven of them in all.
“Look, Jace. Will these do?” He gave me a broad smile.
“Perfect. Bring them into the back room. I have the still set up back there already.” I took them down from the shelves one by one and carried them to the back bedroom. Jace filled each one, seven gallons in all. There were still three gallons remaining in the tank of the still, so I went back out and fished around the kitchen. I found a five gallon ice cream container. Man, she must have loved her ice cream, I thought. It held the rest of the water fine. We covered the mouths of the milk bottles with aluminum foil to keep the water as clean as possible. We were able to fit two of the gallon bottles into the refrigerator but no more, so we lined the rest of the containers up neatly on the kitchen counter.
