The Hollow Men (Book 1): Crave

by Jonathan Teague

  Catching movement in the corner of his eye, he snapped his head around. Chase had his finger pressed to his lips. The zombies were waking up.

  CHAPTER 29

  ONE SMALL GRAVE

  Silence was paramount. Sensing a change in the dozens of hollow men in the park, Scott shepherded the three kids to a more hidden place. With the fort at their backs, Katie and Emily looked ready to break into a run, but managed to keep still.

  Scott whispered three questions at the speed of an auctioneer, fueled as much by euphoria as the urgency to get away. “Were any of you hurt by those things? Can you run? Are there others we can save?”

  No, yes, and finally, from Chase, “We’re the only ones left.”

  They fired their own questions back at him. “Where’s Mom?” “Are our parents safe?” “Why is this happening?” The three kids stared at him, breath suspended, wanting to know yet terrified of the answers.

  Scott dreaded breaking the awful news to Chase and Katie, and it wasn’t the right time. Grave expression, half-truth, and misdirection were Scott’s allies. “Mom is fine. Everyone is at home. It’s bad, but we’re going to make it,” he assured them. The kids exhaled, their panic subsiding.

  “We need to leave right now,” he whispered.

  The bodies of the recently deceased were reanimating. Their heads shook as if trying to get water out of their ears. Jaws started moving, teeth were grinding. They seemed to be entering the final stages of their transformation. A handful of the cataleptics began shambling slowly in their direction.

  Avenues of escape were cut off as more and more of the creatures were transformed. They needed a distraction to save them. Scott was torn between being the one to take the girls home and being the one to lure the hollow men away from them. Katie might need to be carried.

  He studied Chase and made his decision.

  Scott put his arm around him and pulled him closer, their foreheads almost touching. “Be strong. I have some important things to tell you. You need to know what’s at stake.”

  Chase heard in Scott’s voice how serious this was.

  “Your dad and I have always seen greatness in you. I’ve watched you grow up. I know the adult you will be—fearless, honorable, tough. I wish we had the years for you to develop into manhood, but the situation is too dire. We don’t have years. We have minutes, maybe only seconds for you to become that great man. I need it right now. Our lives depend on it.”

  Scott held him by the shoulders more tightly before saying, “Your mom and dad are dead.” Chase took a sharp breath.

  Scott continued without pausing, needing Chase to quell his grief for the moment. “You and Katie are all that’s left of your family. The two of you must survive this. You will survive this. And…I need you to save Emily. We can’t stay together. These things need to be drawn away while the others escape. I will do that part. You are going to get the girls home.”

  Chase shook his head.

  Scott pushed harder. “You saw me try to climb up to the fort. I’m hurt. I wrecked my shoulder this morning, and the pain is almost overpowering when I try to use it. I’m exhausted. If I try to get you and the girls away from here, we will all die. However, I can get to a bike over there.” Scott pointed to the parking lot.

  “I’ll get these creatures to follow me. I’m counting on you to get the girls to my house. Will you do this?”

  Chase swallowed without saying anything.

  Scott asked again, more firmly, “Chase, will you get my daughter and your sister home?”

  Determination flared in his eyes. “Yes. I will.”

  Scott knew the young man would not fail. “It’s even more dangerous than you know. Your dad is one of them now.” He flicked his chin subtly in the direction of the nearest zombie. “You can’t tell that he’s changed. He looks almost normal. If you see him, you must run from him.”

  A sliver of hope appeared in Chase’s expression, thinking Scott might be wrong about his dad.

  “Chase, he will do worse than just kill you. I’ve seen him…” He finished his warning by pointing at the playground.

  He pivoted him to the girls and gave him a last bit of instruction. “Don’t turn on our street. Go past it. Make sure no one sees you, then cut through the woods to my backyard. I left a chair for you to get yourselves over the fence quickly. Go to the patio door. Maddy will be watching for you.”

  “Uncle Scott…” Doubt crept into his eyes.

  Scott gripped him harder and shook him. “Chase, you can do this. You must do this. Be fast. Be careful. And if you get trapped…”He handed him the mattock. “Don’t hesitate. Swing hard for the head.”

  Turning to the girls, Scott knelt and motioned them over. Chase stood guard. “We have a plan. We’re splitting up. You will go with Chase. Do exactly what he tells you. Mom is waiting for you.”

  He gazed into Emily’s pretty brown eyes, a thousand memories filled his mind: of her as a baby just home from the hospital, as a toddler learning to walk, a little girl on her first day of school… Scott kept any worry from showing in his expression and put on a casual smile, telling her “Don’t worry. We’ll both be fine. No question.”

  It was a terrible risk. Scott wanted to hug her one more time, yet he didn’t. He wanted her to rely on the confidence that he projected. His faith in a good outcome was shaky at best.

  Leaving the children behind, he started shouting and raced to reach the bike. One by one, every head turned in his direction. Hollow men began moving toward him, their advance unsteady. Scott risked checking behind him. A few of the slower ones had quit chasing him, their eyes turning where he didn’t want them to.

  Chase, Katie and Emily were carefully making their way to the densely clustered foliage at the edge of the park. They needed more time to reach the tree line that would give them virtual invisibility under the dark green canopy.

  Turning to face the hungry dead, Scott slowed to a jog, skipping backward, screaming louder, and taunting them to come closer. It worked. He kept it up until he got most of them to follow. Seeing that many greedy, flesh-grinding mouths converging on him terrified him. He quashed the compulsion to flee, waiting until he saw Chase and the girls reach the thick woods and vanish within them.

  A loud clanking and grinding noise came from the chain link fence rubbing against the metal poles that ringed the tennis courts. The number of undead clawing at the perimeter had almost doubled. Attacks had begun inside the enclosure. There were three women and five children still alive and unmolested. They were trapped, scrambling to find a way out. Crying. Screaming.

  Scott saw what it must have been like for Chase, Katie, and Emily during the massacre on the playground: trapped, frantically searching for a way out.

  He deviated from the straight-line course to the parking lot, taking a dangerous detour in a last-gasp attempt to help them. His route took him closer to the pack of hollow men before he veered away again to run parallel to the tennis court. More of the lurching dead joined the chase.

  As Scott ran past the survivors, he grabbed their attention and pointed at a place for them to exit, shouting, “Go! Go! Go!”

  His effort was just enough distraction. The women and children slipped through a gap under the wire mesh and darted into the trees.

  The once-lush grass was trampled and sticky with gore. Scott was the only living flesh on the playground. He had the attention of every ghoulish creature in the park, with a score of motley-looking zombies in tow and another dozen blocking his way back to the bike. Their bodies had been ill-used, their clothing shredded. As they converged on him, he caught the smell of rotting hamburger.

  His strength flagged. He’d never gather the speed and power to punch through the ring of walking dead. To get to the bike, he would have to take a long, oblique path to the edge of the parking lot. He summoned every molecule of energy in his body and arced wide. The undead followed him the way locusts swarm: twisting, turning and moving as one.

  Scott took the
final charge forward. The open gap narrowed to inches. He lunged for the bike and got it moving just in time, almost taking a fatal stumble as he took the skip-step needed to throw his leg over the bicycle’s frame and strike the pedal that would jump him forward.

  Mounted solidly on the seat, his legs pistoned wildly, propelling him forward like a blood-doped Lance Armstrong in the Tour de France.

  Dead hands snatched at empty air. The scratchy sounds of the zombies’ shoes on the blacktop quickly faded in the distance.

  Scott breezed over two miles before slowing, getting well past the pursuing zombies, letting the bike coast, and giving himself time to recover while he considered the best path to return to his family. He’d have to remain vigilant. Luck had been on his side because he hadn’t hit any obstacles. An accident at the wrong place could prove fatal.

  A half-mile ahead, he saw exactly that: a deadly accident.

  The front of the red Dodge truck pointed in his direction. A collision had caused the truck to spin 180 degrees. The grill and fender were both heavily wrinkled and severely bent. One headlight was completely torn off, leaving behind an empty socket. The chrome Dodge Ram stamp stood regal and undamaged.

  Without needing to view it, he knew the driver’s side mirror was cracked. He rubbed his shoulder, reflecting on how very long ago it seemed since he had taken his morning run.

  A silver Acura was nearer, and it was evidently the loser of the head-on collision. Its rear tires hovered a foot above the road. The car slanted downward into an irrigation ditch.

  The muddy embankment swallowed the front corner of the Acura and left bare the severe damage to hood and engine. Shards of glass and plastic decorated the road. The windshield of the car showed evidence of the driver having been thrown through it, nowhere to be seen.

  Scott walked to the truck. The windows were open. He cautiously opened the driver’s side door. On the passenger seat lay an infant, only a few weeks old, wrapped in a light blue blanket. He had a small, oval-shaped bruise on his forehead just above his left eyebrow.

  The baby was dead.

  His face was otherwise smooth and untouched, his death more likely caused by the accident than by the infection. Scott could tell the baby had been carefully swaddled after the accident and laid on the passenger seat as if he were sleeping. Scott pictured a young mother driving the truck, fleeing from zombies, trying to save her baby. A terrible accident took his life.

  What could have happened to make a mother leave her baby in the truck, even though he was dead? A mother would carry her baby until she no longer breathed herself.

  Fresh tracks in the stalks of wheat in the nearby field told him the story. Two small trails led from the Acura, a single trail led from the Dodge. The two trails from the MDX ended abruptly 25 yards away in a bloody patch that merged with a broad swath of flattened plants. From there, a smaller group had broken away in pursuit of the mother, who had blazed her own path through the mature yellow stalks. She’d made it far enough that her tracks disappeared out of Scott’s view.

  He imagined her hysterically sobbing over her infant son, a congregation of hungering corpses approaching the accident. Perhaps already bitten herself, perhaps not, she couldn’t bear the thought of her son’s body being disfigured or violated. She took him in her arms, laid him on his blanket, wrapped him, held him one last time and tenderly placed him on the soft leather cushion of the seat. A kiss and she gave a final goodbye before leaving him in order to draw away the hungry horde pitilessly hunting her.

  Picking the baby up, Scott discovered the blanket was still wet from tears. Holding that little boy in his arms affected him deeply. It left him with an indelible feeling he would never be able to shake. Among the many awful things he’d seen that day, it cut him especially deeply. Scott’s own tears fell on the dead little boy.

  Though he had been panicked over the safety of his family and Tom’s kids, an indescribable peace came over him, absolute assurance that the kids had made it to the house unharmed. Scott couldn’t explain it, and he was equally incapable of doubting it. Along with the calm, Scott felt powerfully compelled to take time to properly bury the body of the innocent baby boy.

  In the truck, Scott found a hard-shell travel bag packed with little clothes, diapers and toys. He removed some of the contents and gently placed the baby inside. He zipped the luggage closed and searched the truck again, looking for something he could use to dig a grave. He found a long handled windshield scraper and used it to shovel the dirt, hurriedly burying the baby in the soft earth.

  Nearby were some large rocks. With effort, and not a little pain, Scott dragged them over the grave–a stone memorial that would also prevent any desecration of the tiny body resting underneath.

  As he stood next to the burial mound, a soft breeze picked up and washed over him. The fatigue in his body dissipated. His muscles were revitalized. The ache in his shoulder eased. In his mind’s eye, he saw a smiling mother surrounded by light, hugging her infant son. Her face shone with joy as she cradled him in her arms, reunited.

  Scott wondered if this mental image was just a subconscious mechanism to help him deal with it all. Am I delusional? Is it God? A view of the after-life? Scott didn’t know, and it didn’t really matter. He badly needed to believe in it and welded his hope to it. He reasoned that if the earth turned into hell, there had to be a heaven.

  His tranquil feeling lasted until Scott started second-guessing his decision to stop and bury the baby. Different mental images flashed into his brain. Ones in which he had to bury his kids, or worse, to put down the reanimated corpses that possessed the very features he knew them by.

  Fear stabbed at him. The thought of those hollow men ensnaring the children made his blood run cold. He clambered into the Dodge truck and found the keys still in the ignition. When he turned the engine over, he heard a loud knocking in the motor. The truck wouldn’t last long. Scott didn’t care about the truck. He just needed it to carry him a few miles and then it could die for all he cared.

  He threw the engine into gear and stomped the accelerator to the floorboard. The truck leapt forward and the speedometer surged to thirty miles per hour. Then the engine shut down with a thunk. Smoke issued from under the hood.

  It was likely that one or more of the pistons had seized. Hoping he could crank the engine and squeeze a little more life from it, Scott twisted the key again. The truck made a clacking and grinding noise.

  Scott climbed out of the truck in panic and ran back to the bike. His leg muscles were rubbery for the first few pedals. He gathered speed and worked to develop a plan for cutting through the throng of zombies that might still crowd the road in front of the park.

  He arrived in front of the playground before he realized it. The crowd of hollow men had dispersed, nowhere to be seen.

  Scott wondered where they’d all gone and what drove them to go there.

  CHAPTER 30

  FAR GONE DEAD

  It took Scott less than fifteen minutes to reach the forest behind his house and vault himself over the fence to his backyard. Laura met him at the door to tell him Chase, Katie and Emily had made it safely to the interim stronghold. Before he could walk into the house, she held his face in both hands and said, “Thank you for bringing her back to me.” The waves of love from her were powerful. He almost expected to feel them on his skin as well as in his heart.

  Chase and Katie stood together in the kitchen with their arms around each other. Katie wept. It was hard not to try to comfort them. They needed their privacy while brother and sister consoled each other.

  Laura balanced baby Autumn on her hip while she directed the frantic work of gathering things she thought they might need. The baby fussed and bobbed her head around, attempting to nurse. Laura had only fed her twenty minutes before. When she’d started having kids, she promised herself that she would never become a human pacifier. Autumn eventually calmed herself.

  Seeing the baby with Laura reminded Scott of the tiny, fresh
ly dug grave a few miles away. His hands were still gritty from the soil. He was determined not to talk about it, at least until he could think about it without getting weepy. The experience felt too raw.

  Scott hurried through the house to gauge its security. Tables were firmly screwed into the exterior doors and into the studs framing them. It would take more than a flesh-and-blood battering ram to get through.

  Maddy was lightning in motion. She and Laura had amassed piles of supplies: food, toiletries, medicine, clothes, camping gear, and more, all of which they’d stacked on the grey cement of the garage floor.

  Emily sat facing the TV. She had two Kindles, her iPad, and their iPhones surrounding her on the floor. Watching her was like viewing a person with ADHD with the video speed at 3x normal. She spent less than a minute on each device, reading and working on one, then trading it for another. She appeared to have regressed to doing the same thing that she’d done almost every day since she had learned to read.

  It was more than reasonable for her to suffer a psychological break after witnessing the savagery at the park, but Scott couldn’t find the perspective to gently coax her out of it, and he was having a stress-induced breakdown of his own. Their lives teetered at the edge of a torturous death. Minutes mattered. He looked incredulously at her, then his patience snapped.

  “What are you doing? Watching TV? And reading? You’ve been out there. You should know better.” He jabbed his finger in the air to emphasize his words. “Those things could force their way inside our house and kill everyone, the way they did at the park! Do you want to see Mom die? Autumn get torn to pieces before your eyes? We should already be gone by now. Get it together! Get on your feet and move!”

  Laura, Maddy, Chase, and Katie stared at Scott in shocked disappointment. Even the baby regarded Scott with disgust. Emily looked up at him. Her expression zigzagged from outrage to hurt. Her eyes brimmed with tears. Her voice was clipped.