“This is so cruel,” Sammy said. “I think you popped one too many pills!”
“Cruel? Hmm. I think it’s rather quite Shakespearean myself.”
“You’re evil,” she retorted, “and you’ll burn in Hell for this!”
“When I get there, I’m sure there will already be a statue in my honor.”
“But that bus full of weapons,” I said, trying to reason with him. “Surely that has to mean something.”
“It would have, had my brother lived to tell the tale. You’re lucky I’ve decided on this versus my original plan. I was going to drop you off at the cannibals’ doorstep, all tied up with a pretty red bow on your heads. They would’ve hogtied you and cooked you.”
“They’re modern cannibals. They use IVs and drugs and surgically remove the meat they want. They don’t exactly boil their victims in a big cauldron like some head-hunting tribe.”
“I’m not so sure they’d forego their cruel and unusual nourishment after what you did to them.” He shook his head. “You gave away their weapons and stole their rations. Because of you, many of their guards are dead. I’m sure they would have loved to devour your pretty little face, one bite at a time, while you were looking right at them.”
“So you’re killing us…nicer?” Sammy asked.
“I’ll be kind enough to put a bullet in your head. Then, once you’re dead, I’ll even shoot ya again, so you don’t come back for a sequel. You’ll be safe behind those bars. It’ll make the perfect mausoleum. It’s a whole lot better than dying as an Extra Value Meal. I’m only affording you this courtesy because you saved some of our friends and provided us with guns.”
“This isn’t what your brother would want,” I said.
“It’s not his decision anymore, is it? I’m angry about that, and I will have my revenge.”
“I know all about anger,” I said, meeting his gaze. “I’ve got the same problem myself. My mother hates it, and my father grounded me more times than I could count. I have this real bad temper, and—”
“Stop it!” he roared.
“If anybody understands your grief, Marvin, it’s me and Sammy. We’ve lost everyone we ever cared about. My fiancé was murdered before my very eyes, and my parents—”
“I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to make me see you as a person, a human being, so I won’t be so quick to kill you. That ridiculous psychological warfare won’t work on me.”
“Please,” Sammy said, her eyes bulging in fear. “Don’t do this.”
“I’m gonna prop the door open for you,” he continued. “The zombies will keep you company while you think about what you did. I’ll be back after breakfast to shoot you.” He then smiled and popped a few pills into his mouth.
We were at the mercy of a paranoid, delusional drug addict who blamed us for his brother’s death. I was sure that if his mind hadn’t been clouded by chemicals, he would have been able to think straight, but pleading with him in that deluded state did little good. My hatred and anger burned deep, and I punched the wall as hard as I could. I tried to control my temper, but it just exploded. Pain exploded across my wrist as I grimaced.
Marvin just laughed, mocking my pain. They pointed their guns at us one last time, then turned and left. Gunfire echoed into our cell as they shot anything in their path.
A few minutes of silence passed, and we were left with the zombies. I peeked through the propped-open door, but even with the flashlight beam, it was hard to see. A little daylight streamed in through a barred window above us. Figures shuffled down the corridor, and those gut-wrenching, cursed moans rang through the air. My body stiffened and my breathing labored as horror ran through me. It wasn’t very comforting that the zombies were hungry, and we were their prime rib. The thought of surviving that night, only to be killed in the morning was tormenting, which was obviously Marvin’s goal. He was sick, and he wanted us to suffer in complete and utter terror. He wanted us to feel helpless and trapped. Just killing us wasn’t good enough for him. He wanted to instill fear with the zombies and fear of impending death.
“What’re we gonna do?” Sammy asked. “They left us in an abandoned jailhouse infested with zombies.”
“We just have to figure out a way out of here.”
She crossed her arms. “Easier said than done. I’d love to shove that bottle of pills down his throat.”
“We have until morning. Let’s start with those bars on the window. This place is falling apart. Maybe they’re rusty or the wall is crumbling.”
“If you lift me onto your shoulders, I can check it out.” She placed a hand on my shoulder and steadied herself.
I grabbed the bottom of her feet and legs and slowly lifted her up over my head.
She shook the bars. “Ew. They’re all covered in dirt and spider webs, but they’re sturdy as ever.” Suddenly, she screamed. Her body began to wobble, and her foot began to slide. She flung out her hands to regain her balance, but she fell backward, clutching her heart.
“What happened?”
“A zombie looked right back at me through the window. It was a whole new level of creepy.”
I reached my hand down and helped her up. “Are you okay?”
“I’m fine, but we’re not getting out that window without a blowtorch.”
Zombies started to shuffle toward us from outside the cell door, and fear coiled in my stomach.
“I’m sorry,” she said, realizing that her scream had lured them in our direction.
One particular zombie caught my eye. It was dressed in a suit, and there was a large ring of keys hanging at its hip. “Look!” I exclaimed. “The warden!”
“He’s got keys, Val!”
I smiled. “Sure does.”
“We’ve gotta get his attention,” she said.
Sammy and I began hitting the bars and holding out our hands.
The zombie started to shuffle toward us.
Sammy looked at me as her eyes lit up. “That slime-ball might just be our ticket outta here. I bet those idiots didn’t even think about him.”
“With all those pills Marvin swallows, I’m not sure he actually thinks about anything.”
Suddenly, something crashed, as if some zombies had tumbled down the stairs. The zombified warden turned in the direction of the sound, and I wondered why it was so easily distracted from us, the human meal it so longed for.
“No!” I said, screaming and shaking the bars like an angry gorilla in the zoo.
“Come back!” Sammy shouted, banging her hands against the bars.
We whistled and made noise in any way we could think of. Other zombies came at us, but not the one we desperately needed, which just started to shuffle off into the darkness.
I let out a few curses. No! I thought as the infected inched their way in like drunks. This can’t be happening.
Sammy gripped my arm. “What do we do now, Val?” she asked.
I desperately looked for the warden, but he had disappeared into the zombie mob. “Just stay brave, Sammy,” I said. “They can’t really get to us while we’re behind bars.”
We inched back as arms began reaching in to grab us and their hungry cries intensified. Their prey was so close, yet so far away, and that seemed to be driving them nuts. Rotters of every race, every gender, and age howled, agonizing in their lust for our flesh. Dozens poured in the room, and my stomach clenched again as dead, rotting fingers launched, clawing out, reaching at us right from the depths of Hell.
“The whole place’s filled with them!” Sammy said.
“We’re safe,” I said. “Just keep telling yourself that. They can’t break through the bars any better than we can.” I stared at their outstretched hands; deteriorating faces, saggy, sallow skin; dirty, torn clothes; and their empty, expressionless eyes. They continued to grope with their hands and chomp with their jaws. So this is what it feels like to be stalked by death.
“How are we gonna get out of here by morning?” Sammy asked, her eyes wide. “Our onl
y chance is if somebody finds us, but what are the chances of that? Nobody even knows we’re here.”
“Freaking out isn’t going to help us.”
“You know what?” she said. “We wouldn’t even be here if we would’ve just left in the first place. The second we woke up in that fake hospital, we shoulda just run as far as we could. If we had, we might even be on your grandma’s island by now. Instead, we’re gonna be executed tomorrow, of we don’t die of heart attacks in jail first.”
“We couldn’t just let all those people die, Sammy.”
“I was mad at Rob for just deserting us when you decided to take on the doctor, but now I know he was right. You’ve gotta worry about yourself, Val, because nobody else is gonna look out for you. He was smart to leave us and go look for a way out with his unconscious friend, because that’s what a survivor does. You won’t be a survivor if you’re always trying to save the world instead of your own butt.”
“Even Rob had a change of heart.”
“Yeah, and now I wish he wouldn’t have. I wish he would’ve just run off into the sunset, because then we wouldn’t have met his crazy brother, the one who just sentenced us to death for a crime we’re only guilty of in his whacko head!”
“All of those people would have died, Sammy. Insane as Marvin is, we never could have gotten them out of there without his team for backup. Even if they didn’t realize it, those people’s lives depended on the kindness and compassion of strangers.”
“And where are they now, when we could use a little kindness? They don’t even know us or what we did for them. We gave up our lives to save theirs, and they’ll never appreciate that sacrifice.”
“At least they’re alive.”
“And we’re not, at least not for long! You can’t go around saving every person you see, Val. You just can’t. Your little good Samaritan act has us on the chopping block. Their lives cost us everything!”
“We’ll find a way out,” I said softly.
“How?” she shouted hysterically. “This place is abandoned. Those zombies already caught a whiff of fresh meat, and they’d love to devour us alive. There are enough of them to break the bars. If they figure that out, just like they figured out how to smash through those museum windows, Marvin won’t have to kill us. All he’ll find when he comes in here tomorrow will be a pile of bloody bones!”
“That won’t happen. They can’t break through those bars, I guarantee that.”
“Okay, that makes me feel a little better, but not much.”
“Take a deep breath,” I counseled her.
“There’s nobody to help us. Maybe we should ask the zombies,” she snapped. She turned and looked out the bars. “Hey, you, over there, with the one arm and that nasty scar on your face, would you mind showing us the way out? We’ve enjoyed our stay, but we’d like to go now!”
It growled back at her and licked its cracked lips.
She punched the wall. “See? Our only hope is if Marvin changes his mind.”
I frowned. “That lunatic won’t be giving us a get-out-of-jail-free card, Sammy. You know that as well as I do.”
“Then that’s it. We’re just…doomed!” she screamed, throwing her arms in the air. “And don’t go telling me to calm down or giving me one of your little it’s-just-a-little-bump-in-the-road speeches either. There are a gazillion zombies in here! This is a major roadblock!”
“You’re only attracting more by screaming like that,” I said.
“So flippin’ what? It’s not like they can get in, right? You said so yourself. And you know what else?”
“What?”
Her lips trembled, and she looked at me as her voice cracked with emotion. “Death is a real bummer.”
I held her shaking body and tried to comfort her. I was just as scared as she was, but I knew she needed me to be strong, so I tried to hold it together.
“I don’t wanna die,” she said.
I held her close. “I know, Sammy. I won’t give up, and you shouldn’t either.”
“It’s just…I have so much to live for. If this world ever gets back on its feet, I want to draw and play guitar, sing, maybe even join or start a band.”
“I’ve heard you sing. You sound like an angel.”
“I know being in a band sounds ridiculous, but I’ve got so many dreams. It isn’t fair, Val! Why don’t I get to live?”
Not sure what to say, I just held her close and listened to her talk through the nightmarish sounds all around us as the army of darkness shuffled, moaned, and banged into each other. I couldn’t lie to her and assure her we weren’t going to die. I hoped we wouldn’t, but if I had had a Magic 8 Ball to shake, I was pretty sure it would have said, “Outlook not so good.”
“When I woke up this morning, it was just like any other day. Lots of zombies, a blue sky, sunshine on my face. Or maybe that was yesterday, because I was passed out for a night from that IV. Maybe even a couple days ago. I don’t know. But anyway, the point is, I didn’t expect to be executed by a madman. I thought I might eventually be eaten by a zombie, but definitely not shot by a human for no good reason. It’s not fair. How dare he take my life away from me?”
“I know how you feel,” I said. “I’ve spent the last year fighting to survive, and now I’m gonna go out like one of those wretched things, with a bullet between my eyes. We don’t deserve to die like them. If I’m destined to die, I don’t want it to be like that.”
“At least if he puts us down like animals, it’ll be quick and painless—an end to all this suffering and torment. Do you believe in Heaven, Val? Will we see our family on the other side? Will my mom and dad be waiting for me? Will my friends greet me at the pearly gates?”
“I’m sure we’ll get a long lecture from Jack.”
She laughed. “That’s a given, but you always knew how to put him in his place.”
“Yeah, he could be a pain, but I sure miss him.”
“I miss them all,” she whispered, “and I’m so sorry about what I said. I’m just scared, and I can’t control my outbursts. Of course I’m happy that all those people made it out alive because we put them on that bus. I’m just sad that I have to die for their freedom.”
“There’s this old saying that no good deed goes unpunished.”
She half-smiled. “I know. I read it on a fortune cookie once. Of course, I also read, ‘That wasn’t chicken’ on a fortune cookie once, too, so I try not to put too much stock in them,” she tried to joke, but it didn’t come off so funny while she was crying and speaking in a terrified, trembling voice.
“Well, now all we can do is keep fighting…till the end. We can’t give up yet, not while we still have breath in our bodies.”
“You’re right, Val,” she said, letting go of me and backing up against the stone wall, “and if it has to be this way, I’m glad I’m at least with you.”
I stared around us at our very own, personal 3D nightmare horror show, complete with special effects in sound, makeup, smell, and gore.
Sammy tried to put on a braver face, but she began to hyperventilate, gasping for air.
I walked over and took her cold hands in mine. “Sammy, I want you to close your eyes and visualize yourself in a happy place, sitting on a pristine beach, beside the ocean. Concentrate on the warm sand between your toes, the salty sea air, the seagulls cawing overhead, and the waves lapping up against the shore.”
“I smell tropical flowers.”
“Good! Can you can feel the white sand running through your fingers and the cool breeze across your face.”
“Mm-hmm. It feels nice,” she said, her voice trembling.
“Feel the hot sun beaming on your face?”
She nodded and smiled.
“Now I’m splashing cool, refreshing water on your face. You laugh and splash me back. Picture it, Sammy. Really feel it. Put yourself in that place, away from here. Taste the sweetness and the lemon in your iced tea? Hear the waves crashing along the shore?”
For seve
ral moments, we went back and forth, imaging that beautiful scenario that put our minds at ease and helped us tune out the nightmare only feet away. After a while, a lot of the zombies left, and only a few stubborn ones stuck around.
Sammy pointed to a dead zombie right outside the bars, way over to the right. “Look!” she said. She reached her hand out and strained to grab something.
“Hey! Keep your hands inside the ride at all times, young lady,” I said.
“This is definitely worth the risk,” she said, reaching farther and grunting as her shoulder strained through the bars.
Chapter 22
Sammy’s fingers wrapped around a long, black object, a fire poker. “There are two more,” she said, handing me one.
“What are they doing in a jailhouse?”
“Look in the corner. I see sheets, a backpack, a dirty pillow and other survival stuff. Somebody used to hole up here before the zombies took over. Maybe we’ll be lucky and that person will come back.”
“Fat chance. That person either left or is zombie bait.”
“I was trying to be hopeful. So I don’t put myself in panic mode again.”
“Do you think there’s a gun in that backpack?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“I’d love to get my hands on that backpack.”
“If only a zombie would be nice enough to bring it over.”
“Even if I shot Marvin’s men in a surprise attack, it still wouldn’t help us get out of here.”
“We can bash their heads in when they come to kill us in the morning.”
I sighed. “They’ll shoot us before we even get the chance. It won’t help us.”
“Let’s not dwell on it. I got a better idea.”
“You do?”
She smiled. “I do.”
“Spill.”
“We can kill zombies to release stress,” she said.
“Yeah? And what good is that gonna do us?”
Val: Prequel to The Zombie Chronicles Page 16
