by Eric's Story
He was just finishing knotting the last of the rope used to secure the load when Pepe went into a barking fit. His heart leaped in his chest and he slowly edged his way to where he could see past the house. To his amazement, he saw Brandy walking up the long winding road toward the B & B. Her hair was in her face and she was clutching her cell phone tight in one hand.
"Brandy!" He couldn't believe he was seeing her again.
Pepe continued to bark at her angrily. He couldn't blame the little dog. Brandy had been a total bitch that morning.
"Brandy, baby! Oh, my gawd! Where is the car?" He started toward her, dragging Pepe behind him. The little dog at first resisted then changed his mind and began to dart in front of Eric’s legs, almost tripping him.
"Brandy!" Eric waved at her, grinning, his heart bursting with happiness.
Slowly, she raised her head and from the distance he could see that one cheek was gone and there was a deep gash in her forehead. Her exposed perfect white teeth snapped as her murky eyes fastened hungrily on him.
Then with an ungodly shriek, she charged toward him.
Chapter Eight
Fighting Back the Dead
Despite her torn face, blank eyes, and terrifying shriek, Eric could not believe that Brandy had joined the ranks of the undead. He stood and stared at her approaching form in a blank sort of shock. It was difficult for his brain to equate her torn visage with the one he loved so much. Her beautiful legs were splattered in blood and one of them was turned at a weird angle making her movement toward him jerky and inhuman.
Yet, it was Brandy. Her gorgeous streaked hair, her heaving breasts, her immaculately manicured hands reaching for him, but her dead eyes and ruined cheek destroyed the illusion that she was his once more.
Pepe was in a barking fit at his feet and as his survival instinct kicked in and his senses returned to normal, the little dog's warning finally registered and he raised the rifle.
It was obviously hard for the undead Brandy to make it up the incline toward them and she was doing her best to reach them. Her leg kept twisting oddly under her, turning her body to one side with each step and she would have to swing her other leg around to redirect herself toward Eric and the little dog.
Pepe strained at the end of his leash, putting himself directly between Eric and the zombie. His shrill barks of anger grew fiercer as she approached.
"Pull the trigger," Eric whispered, but his finger seemed to have trouble responding. He became aware of the tears rushing down his cheeks and he sniffled loudly. "Pull the trigger."
Another voice, maybe the voice of reason, whispered in his thoughts to flip off the safety and his thumb did so. The same voice urged him to raise the gun higher and he did. But still, his finger on the trigger would not obey.
"Brandy," he wailed in a soft voice.
She kicked Pepe aside as she had often did in life and the little dog yelped. Her lovely hands reached out to grip his shoulders and he felt them slide along the material of his shirt. That terrible wound revealed her lolling tongue and champing teeth and he gasped as she tried to pull him close. The gun was firmly between their bodies, holding them apart.
With a whimper of despair, Eric shoved with the gun and she staggered back a few feet on her broken leg. Howling with frustration, Brandy launched her wounded body back at him, but this time he raised the gun a little higher and shoved the barrel into her open mouth. She didn't seem to notice as she pushed hard against it, her perfectly shaped white teeth grinding against the metal.
Pepe hysterically barked at their feet and tried to pull on Brandy's shoe to get her away from Eric.
"Brandy," Eric said softly as his heart broke even more. "I'm really sorry."
At last, his finger obeyed his inner voice and the bark of the rifle going off filled the air and seemed to echo around him. He was able to handle the recoil a bit better this time and stood his ground as the gun fired again, but he had to look away. He could not stand to see Brandy's torn face or witness her final death.
Pepe lapsed into silence and Brandy’s growls ceased as the echo of the gunshot faded away. Eric felt the shotgun grow heavy with her weight and he lowered the barrel and felt her slip off of it. Her body hit the ground next to him with a heavy thud.
"Brandy," he sobbed softly. He turned his gaze down to her broken body and saw that her face was turned away from him and her hair had fallen to cover it almost like a death shroud.
Pepe sat next to the body and whined sadly in his throat. For some reason that sound unleashed Eric's agony and he fell to his knees sobbing. Pepe laid a little paw on Brandy's arm and began to piteously howl. Together, the man and his dog mourned a woman that had been a part of their life for the last two years and despite everything she had done to them, they both had loved in their own way.
Time passed as they sat together and mourned. Eric took off his glasses and wiped his eyes as he cried. At some point, Brandy had turned back and returned to the town. Obviously, something had happened on the road that resulted in her coming back.
"She was coming back," Eric said to Pepe. "I bet she was sorry and was coming back to us."
Pepe looked over his shoulder at Eric and whined a little.
He would have forgiven her. He knew it. He would have forgiven her and together they would have faced the undead horde. It was easy to imagine their reunion, their stand against the zombies, their fight to freedom and safety with little Pepe at their side.
It was too easy to imagine and too painful to realize it did not happen and would not.
Instead, Brandy had died somewhere nearby and he had given her final, terrible death.
Somewhere nearby…
He scrambled to his feet and shoved his glasses back on. Pepe looked up at him in alarm.
"There are more out there," he said to the little dog.
Pepe hopped up to all fours and looked around.
Eric quickly broke open the shotgun and began to reload it with the shells from his pocket. He was suddenly and terrifyingly aware of how exposed he was.
Snapping the action back into place, he began to walk carefully toward the front of the house. He knew the front door was shut and therefore nothing could lurk inside, but the shadows were growing longer and something could easily be somewhere in the bushes or behind the trees.
In actuality, it was standing in the parking lot looking one way then the other. Maybe it had heard him and Pepe and wasn't sure where the sound was coming from. Voices did seem to echo around the house quite a bit or be carried off by the wind coming up the back of the hill from the pasture.
The zombie was very tall, with almost ebony skin, a shaved head and wearing army fatigues. The dead man's face and chest were smeared in blood and chunks of flesh and Eric felt his stomach lurch. It was probably Brandy's blood. Before he could even formulate a plan, Pepe charged forward on his leash and began to bark at the dead thing.
The pale eyes of the creature scanned the area and found Eric. With an unholy scream, it began to rush toward him.
"Dammit, Pepe," Eric said to the dog and began to run toward the porch.
The dog ran next to him, still barking, but Eric realized halfway to the porch he was not going to make it to safety. Swinging the gun around, he aimed at the creature’s head and fired. The zombie was so close, the buckshot flayed its face opened and destroyed its eyes. It screeched in frustration as it was instantly blinded and continued forward. Eric realized that the buckshot was only going to be effective at close range.
"Shit," he whispered.
The zombie was still floundering in his direction and the porch was still not close enough to reach without risking the zombie's clutches. Looking around desperately, he spotted a shovel set aside with other gardening tools. They had the appearance of being abruptly abandoned. Probably this morning when it had all gone to hell.
"Pepe, shut up!" He ordered the dog and was rewarded with a stunned look and silence.
Not wanting to waste the ammuni
tion and feeling a deep terrible anger at the murderous thing for what it had done to Brandy, Eric picked up the shovel. Letting go of Pepe's leash, he motioned to the dog to sit and began to circumvent the blind zombie, trying to get behind it. The dead man floundered through the garden, banging into trees and foliage, but it continued toward the spot that it had last seen Eric. Pepe sat uneasily in his spot, watching his master with bright eyes with his gaze flicking toward the zombie warily. Eric pointed at Pepe to stay once more and took his time to move quietly around some benches. The zombie banged into the side of the benches and staggered a few feet to one side. Correcting itself, it began to stumble again toward where Pepe waited.
Eric set one foot on the bench and heaved himself up praying it wouldn't creak. It didn't. Then he stood, legs apart, and lifted the shovel over his head.
"Hey, fuckhead," he shouted and his voice broke from his nerves.
The zombie whipped around and started toward him.
Eric screamed in anger and slammed the shovel down hard onto the zombie's head. There was a sickening sound, like a cantaloupe being dropped on the floor, as the shovel slammed into the creature's head, splitting apart the skin and bone. The zombie stopped in its tracks and wobbled on its feet. Eric managed to draw the shovel back and slam it down again. This time it sank deep into the zombie's head and the dead man fell to the ground, truly dead.
Eric felt sick to his stomach, but jumped down off the bench and drove the shovel into the back of the man’s head a few more times. He could see now that the solider had been attacked from behind. Large chunks of flesh were torn from his shoulder and back.
"Pepe, come here," Eric ordered as his nerves steadied.
The little dog, which seemed properly impressed, trotted over trailing his leash.
Eric pulled the shovel free of the zombie's head and wiped the brains and blood off on the grass. To his surprise, he saw the man had a revolver still tucked into his holster. With trembling fingers, he retrieved it then backed away from the body.
"Okay, we're going into the house," Eric said in a quivering voice.
Pepe waited for him to grab the end of the leash then together they hurried back to the house. Eric took one last long look around the property then slammed the door shut behind him, sealing him and Pepe into the safety of the old farmhouse.
Chapter Nine
Revelations
That night was rough. He opened a bottle of wine and drank the whole thing while watching the news on the TV and sobbing. He had let Pepe up on the bed with him, something Brandy would never do, and managed to eat some roasted chicken he had found in the refrigerator and some left over pie. It was hard to do anything other than cry as the news continued to show the end of the world and Brandy's body lay prone beneath the bedroom window.
Today was the day he was supposed to slip the big diamond ring on her finger and instead he had killed her. Well, killed her a second time. But still, Brandy was gone. Her beauty, her laugh, her smile, her kisses, everything. And though she had given him a rough time, cheated on him and had one of the worst tempers he had ever encountered, he had loved her. And she was gone.
He fell asleep around midnight and didn't wake up until morning. Pepe woke him up with a cold nose to his forehead and an insistent whine. Pepe needed to go do his business.
Eric's head throbbed with a wine hangover and he grunted as he sat up. "You do realize there are zombies outside. And me taking you outside might get my ass eaten."
Pepe gave him an annoyed look and jumped down to the floor.
"Gimme a sec," Eric muttered.
He staggered into the bathroom, relieved himself, and then splashed cold water on his face to wake himself up all the way. Pepe waited impatiently for him in the doorway, looking pretty disgruntled that Eric's bladder was empty while his was still full.
Eric snatched up the revolver and binoculars and began his rounds of looking out all the windows to make sure nothing was staggering around in the early morning. Brandy's body and that of the solider lay where he had left them and nothing else stirred except for the Waskom cat stalking a bird.
"Okay, lets do this," Eric said in a voice that sounded a little stuffy from all his crying the night before.
Making sure Pepe was secure on the leash, he hurried down the stairs and double-checked through the peephole before opening the door.
The morning was glorious. The sunlight streaming through the trees was hazy and full of tiny motes. Spring flowers in all their colorful raiment flowed down the sides of the driveway and filled the garden. Birds sang in the trees and in the distance a rooster was announcing the morning routine. It was a perfect day.
Except for the dead soldiers on the porch and in the garden and Brandy's body around the side of the house.
Pepe skipped down the steps and began sniffing around for a proper place to go.
"I like it better when you dump and go," Eric chided him. "You know. Zombies."
Pepe gave him a dark look and continued to nose around a birdbath.
Eric's gaze slowly slid down the drive and he began to wonder where the car was. Obviously, Brandy had made it to an area nearby. It was hard for him to believe she had walked miles and miles to get to the house. So far, the zombies didn't seem capable of deductive reasoning. He seriously doubted they even remembered their lives. So that meant the car was nearby.
He could feel his legs getting wobbly with the thought of taking the risk, but no zombies had shown up last night. If things had gone down badly in the community center, they would be trapped inside the building.
He took a deep breath and rubbed the side of his nose nervously.
He could walk down the driveway and see if the car was somewhere along the way. If it was intact, they could use that instead of the ATV to escape. It would be safer.
Maybe Brandy had seen the solider, not realized he was dead, stopped for help and…
That was always a possibility.
Right?
Pepe finished his business and kicked his back feet over the mess. It didn't do much to cover it, but Pepe seemed to think it helped. Skipping to the edge of his leash, the dog looked around then began to sniff at a statue.
If the dog seemed calm, then it should be okay.
Right?
Eric took a deep breath and looked down at the revolver in his hand. This was a better weapon. Faster. More destructive. He would aim for the head and it would be fast.
His stomach coiling into knots, he looked back at the closed door to the farmhouse.
Yeah.
The car would be good.
He started walking down the stone path to the parking lot. Pepe groused a little as he was pulled away from his smelling, but he followed. Eric's loafers crunched across the gravel parking lot as Pepe skipped along, his tiny feet expertly maneuvering over the rougher parts. Once they hit the paved road, Pepe began to dash about excitedly, sniffing every spot on the road it seemed, but he didn't bark and he didn't seem alarmed.
Eric walked briskly, the cool morning air soothing against his fevered flesh. His nerves were on edge and he could feel his body temperature rising. Swallowing hard, he tried not to panic and kept focused on moving down the walkway. The trees lining the road were full of singing birds and the branches swayed with the breeze in a soothing dance.
But he knew he could not relax, he could not drop his guard.
Pepe suddenly growled and Eric spun around, the gun raised instantly.
A squirrel tittered angrily at Pepe then scampered up a tree.
Pepe barked after it with satisfaction then looked at Eric's tense face as if to say "What?"
"No barking at squirrels, Pepe. Zombies only!" Eric lowered his hand and took a deep breath.
Pepe looked a bit disappointed with this order and turned and kicked his feet up at Eric in disapproval.
They moved on down the road, along the curve, losing sight of the house. Eric's heart began to thud harshly in his chest and his hands felt cold and
clammy.
"A car is a good thing," he muttered and kept walking.
He had to keep focused on the goal. The goal was safe passage.
They rounded another corner and the trees on the right hand side of the road gave way to a long sloping view down a field full of bluebonnets to the town at the bottom of the hill. Fumbling for his binoculars around his neck, he took a deep breath.
