State of Decay (Omnibus (Parts 1-4))

by Peggy Martinez

  “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about,” Ghost laughed. My face flamed.

  “Shut it. Let’s go and get this over with.” I was still grinning like a fool when we dipped through the opening in the gate. Our fight began immediately. We had to take down over a dozen zombies--rapid-fire—just to get away from the school. I ran with the group, pausing only to slide my blade through the emaciated neck of one zombie and then to stab through the bashed-in skull of another. I refused to look back at the high school. We’d see each other again soon enough. We had to.

  Avoiding the undead this time around was not an easy task. For one thing, they seemed more aware and more active since the sun was going down, for another, their numbers seemed to have tripled since we’d gone into the school. Zombies flooded the streets, sidewalks, and most of the buildings. There really was no “safe” zone as we moved quickly through the city. We ducked behind cars, took out dozens of zombies, and tried to do it all while making as little noise as possible. If the zombies were acting herd-like, then I didn’t want to find out what a stampede of undead was capable of. I shuddered at the thought.

  The only thing in our favor as we moved further into the city was that the zombies were moving slower than normal. I hadn’t been going crazy back at the base. For some reason the undead were not moving as quickly as they had been before. Ghost moved rapidly, driving his long, sword through the skull of a female zombie before swinging it in an arc and splitting a large and extremely bloated zombie with dark gray skin from scalp to navel. The zombie exploded, its bowels splashing onto his pants and boots. I sighed inwardly. Lucky. Ghost’s eyes were wide though, probably wondering how it was possible that so much rotten pulp could have fit inside of just one undead man. I’d wondered the exact same thing the day before when I was unceremoniously showered in zombie entrails.

  We all kept moving, knowing time was of the essence. We were within a block of the school bus parking lot and fighting our way towards it with our backs to busted-out store fronts, when the zombie population seemed to thicken right before our eyes. Each of us were downing two or three zombies at a time, but not making much forward progress. Ghost fell in beside me, panting.

  “Let’s cut through that building and come up to the fence line from behind.” I glanced over at the store, which miraculously looked to have its front window intact and nodded. I got Z’s and Nate’s attention and pointed to where we were going to head. Z bobbed his head and took down another zombie before sprinting with Nate. I cleared the front of the store right behind Z and turned to make sure no zombies were closing in our group as Nate and Ghost made their way the last few feet to the store. As soon as they cleared the front door, I locked the door and leaned against it long enough to catch my breath. I wiped my hands on my jeans and pointed my knife toward the back of the store.

  “We have to keep moving, the sun’s about to set and then we will be fucked for real,” I said between breaths. Ghost nodded and we all moved through the store, our breathing heavy and our hearts hammering. In retrospect, I should have remembered the barista from that Starbucks back in Midtown two years before. If I had, what happened next might have been avoided. We pushed open a door and entered the back room of the store we’d taken a short cut through. Z stopped.

  “Oh my god! Do you realize what store we’re in?” he asked, his eyes bugged out in shock. I glanced around the room. In all honesty, I hadn’t even noticed what it was when we ducked into the store. “We’re in a freaking Dunkin Donuts,” he groaned. I slapped the back of his head and shook my own. This kid was serious about his food. “Look over there.” He pointed across the room at what looked like very dirty and old deep fryers. “They made their own donuts right here in the store too,” he muttered in awe. Just then, I heard the banging on the front glass of the store. It had begun to grow louder and more frenzied. The zombies were getting riled up.

  “Sorry, can’t stay and reminisce about the good ‘ole days,” I said as I began marching toward the back door. Nate and Ghost moved as well, but Z held back. I turned just as Z squatted and put a hand out to pet a large bag of donut mix and icing on a lower shelf.

  “Too bad we can’t take a few …” His voice was cut off by a guttural cry of pain as a zombie that none of us had realized was in the room launched itself through the shelf from the other side and landed on top of a stunned Z. I cried out in terror as the zombie bit into Z’s throat, ripping flesh with its teeth and tearing into an artery. Blood sprayed up in an arc across the room as Ghost jerked the zombie off of Z and decapitated it. I ran over to Z and landed on my knees beside him. Blood pooled all around him. His eyes were wide and blood trickled from his mouth as his throat constricted several times. His last few breaths came out in quick pants—wet gurgles as he laid there in a dirty storeroom floor and died. Ghost laid a hand on my shoulder a minute or two later. I wiped away the tears I hadn’t realized I’d cried and stood unsteadily.

  “I’m ready. Let’s go,” I said stiffly. I turned away as Ghost did what he had to in order to make sure Z would never become one of the walking dead.

  “Okay, let’s keep tightly together and get to the bus parking lot as quickly as possible. Nate and I both nodded. We came out of the store in a whirlwind of blades and good thing we did. Zombies—tons of them—stood between us and a line of buses not a hundred yards away. It was evident to me right away that we were fucked. No way around it. No way to sugarcoat it. We were going to die. And that pissed me off. I had promised Jude that I’d come back to him, dammit. I fought for all that I was worth, but the moment Nate took out his gun, I knew there was no hope. His shots rang out in the city, drawing the attention of every zombie in the immediate area.

  “What the fuck?” Ghost bellowed out. “Melody!” He shouted at me, drawing my attention to him just as a zombie sunk its teeth into his arm. I screamed in rage and ran my knife through the zombie in front of me, skewering it through an eye and heedless of the putrid juices that splattered my shirt. I ran toward Ghost, fighting off four … five … six undead before I reached him. He was still swinging his sword, his eyes blazing. He wasn’t going down without a fight. When his eyes met mine, they were sorrowful. I think another small piece of my soul died in that moment. I heard a cry of agony come from behind me, but I didn’t have the time or the strength to turn and see what was happening to Nate. When his high pitched scream pierced my skull and then … nothing, I knew it was only Ghost and I left.

  “Melody!” Ghost bellowed as he kept fighting. I glanced up and saw him pointing his finger in the direction of the parking lot. I sliced my knife across the face of a short zombie and looked to where he was pointing. A small opening. Not much of one, but it was a spark of hope. We both redoubled our efforts and moved in unison toward the break in bodies. As soon as I made it there, I began running, assured Ghost was right behind me, that he was going to make it. I ran in between buses, banging and pushing on the doors of a few, looking for one that was open. Surely one of them had to be open. I only stopped when a zombie stumbled into my path and only long enough to drive my knife into its skull and then keep moving.

  When I got halfway down the line of buses, I banged on another door, feeling like it was all quite hopeless. When the door gave beneath my pounding and I fell onto the stairs of the bus, I pulled myself off of the steps with a gasp and ran up onto the empty bus. I moved quickly to the third seat and slammed a window down before pulling my gun off of my back and propping it up on the window seal. My hands were shaking by the time I spotted Ghost and started popping off the zombies that were hot on his tail. When he saw me in the window he ran for all that he was worth until he reached the bus, slamming the door shut behind him. My shots never slowed as I thinned the crowd of zombies that were closing in around the side of the bus.

  “At this rate, I’ll run out of bullets without even making a dent in their numbers,” I shouted over the cacophony. Ghost was sitting in the driver’s seat, staring at the zombies as they banged their fists and
gnashed their teeth on the bus door. “Ghost?” His eyes met mine and he smiled.

  “I’m dead, Melody Carter,” he said calmly. I shook my head and slammed the window up into place.

  “No. There has to be something we can do …” I began. Ghost chuckled beneath his breath and smiled at me sadly.

  “Not this time, beautiful girl,” he answered matter-of-factly. Tears ran down my face unashamedly. No. This couldn’t be how things were supposed to be. I walked over to the first seat on the bus, close to Ghost, and sat down heavily.

  The force of the zombie’s bodies against the bus rocked it a bit. Holy hell. As long as they knew we were in here, they wouldn’t quit. Even if we started the bus, we wouldn’t be able to run over this many. We would never be able to get out of this mess. I closed my eyes and sunk back into my seat. Jude’s face flashed across my mind and I felt my heart tear in half. I heard Ghost ripping something and my eyes sprung open. He had ripped the hem of his shirt off. I walked over to him and took the fabric from him, wrapping it around the huge, bleeding wound on his upper arm. I took a bottle of water out of my pack, ignoring the frantic zombies on the other side of the glass door and handed it to Ghost. He took it and downed a small swig before handing it back to me.

  “Put that back in your pack. You’re going to need it,” he said gently. I did what he said even though I had no idea what he was talking about. He turned to the steering wheel of the bus and pulled his small pack out of his pocket and began working on the panel beneath the steering wheel.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. “We won’t be able to move … not with this many zombies surrounding us. We’re going to die here.”

  “You’re right, Melody. One of us will die tonight, but not both of us,” he said through a grunt of pain as he jerked a large piece of metal off from beneath the steering wheel.

  “What do you mean, Ghost?” I asked through gritted teeth. “If you think for one second I’m going to leave you here, you got another thing coming,” I shouted. Ghost didn’t even turn to me, but I could hear the smile in his voice as he yanked a bunch of wires out of the front of the bus.

  “Oh no, you won’t be leaving,” he answered. “I’ll be leaving and taking a bunch of these undead bastards with me,” he said like we were discussing whose turn it was to take out the garbage.

  “I don’t fucking think so,” I said with a growl. Zombies were throwing themselves against the door even harder now and I flinched at the sound. I wondered how long the doors would hold before the zombies broke through.

  Ghost stood up from the driver’s seat and swayed as he did. I put a hand out, but he waved me away.

  “Sit down, Melody. I want to show you something.” I did as I was told, too tired to question him. “You see these two wires?” he asked. He pointed out two different colored wires—one red and one blue—he’d separated a bit from the others. I nodded. “Tomorrow morning, when you think it is safe, I want you to rub those two wires together lightly. It won’t take much for the bus to start up.” I frowned down at the wires. “Do you understand?” he asked, his voice weaker than before.

  “Yes, but …” Ghost knelt down beside me on the bus floor until our faces were even. His normally espresso-colored skin was ashen and a fine line of sweat dotted his brow.

  “I’m going to die tonight, Melody,” he stated. “The only way I can make it mean anything is to do it my own way,” he added. I suddenly knew he had a plan and that it was going to involve him sacrificing himself for me. I tried to jump from the seat, to talk some sense into him, but his hand landed on my shoulder and his eyes caught mine. They begged me to understand. I wasn’t sure I could. I’d come to love Ghost like a brother and I couldn’t let him do this.

  “Please, Ghost. Don’t.” My voice could barely be heard over the noise that the zombies were making. Ghost smiled and brought a shaking hand to my face, tipping my chin up.

  “Ah, this won’t be so bad. Dying for those I love. Plus, I’d hate to think of Jude being left all alone. Who’d watch his back and save his ass if both of us were dead?” he asked. A tiny burst of laughter left my lips. “Ah. That’s better. Just don’t forget me, Melody Carter.”

  “I’d never forget you,” I said truthfully. Ghost smiled a huge grin, his white teeth shining in the final light of the day.

  “What else can a man ask for when he faces death?” he asked seriously. My tears kept flowing as he outlined his plan. It was crazy. It was brilliant. It was my only hope.

  In the end, I didn’t beg him to reconsider. I didn’t make a huge scene or blubber all over him. I wanted him to have his final moments of glory, wanted to him to know how much I respected and loved him. I wanted him to know how much I owed to him for everything he was about to do. In the end, his death would be a death of honor for those he loved and who was I to diminish his legacy?

  Ghost got down on his hands and knees and made his way to the back of the bus where only a few zombies seemed to have figured out that they could see us from there. I followed him and crawled as well. When we got the back door, Ghost turned and looked at me one final time.

  “Until we meet again a very, very long time from now, Melody Carter.” He kissed me on my forehead and then launched the back door open. I took out two zombies with my rifle to give him a little more time. I pulled the backdoor shut behind him, locked it, and then flattened myself against the floor as Ghost had instructed me. I could see him take out the few zombies in the back of the bus before he moved around to the side of the bus with a war cry. Even though I couldn’t see what happened, I could imagine it all as I heard him.

  He screamed his anger into the night as he ran. He took shots as he went, taking down more zombies than could be counted. When the pounding on the bus stopped, I knew he’d been right. The zombies had forgotten all about me as they focused in on him and the noise he was making. He bellowed his rage, yelling obscenities as he went, his voice growing more distant as he drew the zombie horde further away from the bus. My tears poured down my face and made a small pool on the floor where I laid as still as possible. And then, when he thought he’d led them far enough away and when he had them clawing at him and biting into his flesh, he dropped his gun. He then released two pins that he’d pulled from the grenades that he’d had strapped to his vest. The explosions rocked the city street, destroying the zombies closest to him, and drawing the rest of the zombies to that spot.

  Ghost’s sacrifice would never be forgotten so long as I lived. I did what Ghost told me to. I was to wait until morning to start the bus. I stayed on the ground, crying until I could cry no more. Still, I laid there until exhaustion swept over me and I slept.

  I DIDN’T SLEEP LONG, EVEN with exhaustion plaguing my heart and body, I still had a job to do. I had to get the bus to the school. I moved slowly from the floor to my knees and stretched until I could peer over the seats and out into the parking lot. The day was clear, the sun already rising quickly, and the area was relatively clear of the zombie multitudes that had been surrounding the bus the night before. I moved quickly, not wanting to take a chance that I would lose too much time and the undead would take over the area again.

  I threw my bag on the ground near the front of the bus and plopped down into the driver’s seat. The bus was freaking huge and I’d never driven anything larger than an SUV. I gulped back my fears and took the two wires Ghost had pointed out the night before in my hands. The spark surprised me, but the bus didn’t start right away. With a sinking feeling, I spoke to the bus in hushed tones, coaxing it like a lover would to make it turn on. I touched the wires together a third time … and finally, the bus roared to life. My relief bowed my shoulders.

  With a shaking hand, I put the bus in gear, pushed the gas gently, and pulled out into the parking lot. The dozen or so zombies in the area had already taken note of the moving bus. Time to get the hell out of dodge. I was pretty proud of myself when I got closer to the school. I’d only run over a few zombies, pushed a smaller car out of
my way, and had done minimal damage to the ginormous yellow school bus. Very proud indeed. I circled the school two times, to make sure someone would see me, before driving to the loading area in the school. Someone would be looking out for us … of that I was positive. When I pulled up to the gates, several people were there to take out the zombies milling about as Manuel and Jude opened the gates wide for me to enter.

  I parked as close to the school as I dared. Someone else could back it up to be loaded—I would have probably taken out a building if I’d tried. I opened the door to the bus and picked up my pack before exiting. When Jude, Manuel, and the others ran up, their eyes searching the bus for the others, the night before rose up again to slap me in the face. Jude walked over to me, his eyes searching my face.

  “Ghost?” he asked softly. A sob escaped my lips as he pulled me into his arms, shushing me and murmuring nonsense. It was okay. Everything was okay. Manuel led the others into the building to start bringing the supplies out and to begin removing several of the seats from the back of the bus to make more room for the supplies. Jude grabbed my hand and pulled me along a sidewalk at the back of the school. I numbly followed him.

  When we entered a locker room, I tugged on his hand. “Wait a sec, what are we doing?” I asked. We went through another door and then we were facing shower stalls. Jude walked over and turned one on and miraculously, water shot out. I looked him, puzzled. He smiled shyly and walked over to me and took my weapon off of me.

  “The school has a small backup generator. There’s water.” I breathed in deeply, trying to feel as good as I should about that. Jude’s hand ran down my arm until he caught my hand in his. He squeezed it lightly and then pulled me into his embrace. “Take your clothes off, Mel,” he whispered into my hair. “Let me show you what you have left to fight for.” He pulled my shirt over my head and then pulled his own off. “Let me show what you have left to live for,” he murmured huskily. His mouth found mine as we both stumbled toward the showers, our hands seeking, our hearts and bodies joining. I let him show me. I let him wash away my pain and sorrow with love and passion. I let him help me forget … even it was only for an hour.