Zombie Attack! Rise of the Horde

by Devan Sagliani

  “I'm sorry,” Scar said in a soft voice. “We gotta take half your supplies. It's our policy.”

  “You can't make an exception for me,” she said, leaning over and giving him the sad eyes.

  “I wish I could, but the rest of the guys wouldn't understand,” he said. “I promise you we won't take the car though. We will need some of the gas, but that's it. You really have no idea how huge a fan I am.”

  “If you're really a fan then you won't rob me,” she pouted, turning on all her charm. “I need this stuff for my mom. Please?”

  “I can't do it,” he said, sounding really torn.

  “I do remember you,” she said. “You were so sweet after waiting all that time. You brought me a teddy bear and I gave you a signed DVD for being so nice.”

  “That's right,” he said, sounding shocked and pleased. “Do you still have the teddy?”

  “I named him Rasputin,” she said. “He's at my mom's house.”

  “That's amazing,” he said. “Rasputin . . . I like that.”

  “I have an idea,” I said. Scar and Rabbit glared at me for interrupting but I pressed on. “We have a spare can of gas in the back next to the water. That's got to be pretty valuable right? Why don't you take that and let us get on our way?”

  Scar stopped to think it over, running his dirty fingers through his salt and pepper beard in the process.

  “Yeah,” he said. “That might work. Go ahead and pop the hatch.”

  I did, and he walked back and took both gas cans instead of the single one I offered. I was glad that we were driving a hybrid. There was no telling when or how we'd be getting gas again. The last thing I needed was to run out of gas ten miles from the base and have to fight my way across an urban jungle filled with zombies and bad guys.

  “You know you're lucky,” Rabbit said with a nasty grin. “Usually when someone mouths off we just take the whole car and make them walk to Ventura on foot.” I didn't say anything for fear of upsetting him further.

  “You're very kind,” Felicity said. “I hope our contribution helps your cause.”

  “I remember you now,” he laughed. “You're that broad from Star Dancers whose partner got chomped on live air. Yeah. I saw that on the internet. Funny as hell.”

  Felicity blanched and went silent. She sat back down and pulled on a pair of sunglasses, looking ill.

  Scar slapped the side of the Lexus with his big, meaty hand.

  “You are clear to go,” he said. “Good luck Miss Felicity Jane. Say hello to your mother for me.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  The bikers moved the cars blocking our path and waved us through. We drove along the deserted highway in silence for a while.

  “That was close,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Benji said. “I thought for sure you were going to freak out and get us all killed.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence, bro,” I said flabbergasted.

  “Just saying,” he shrugged.

  “You're awfully quiet,” I turned to Felicity. “It's okay now. We made it out, thanks to you.”

  “Yeah thanks,” Benji said. “I guess being a celebrity still has its advantages.”

  “You okay?” I asked. “You look like you're going to be sick. Do you need me to pull over? It's okay if you do. It happens to the best of us.”

  “I was just thinking about what Ewan did to Mario,” she said.

  “Oh,” I replied awkwardly. “That must have been rough.” I wasn't really in the mood to get all negative again. We just escaped some serious trouble. We should have been celebrating, not grieving. I thought about Jackson. It had already been a long day and it wasn't even noon!

  “The show was sponsored by Snax Max,” Felicity said. “They are a corporate food conglomerate that owns a bunch of fast food restaurants. Ewan was eating a Beefy Max Burrito supreme when he snapped.”

  “That's not what made him sick though,” I said sensibly.

  “How do you know?” She turned to look at me. “No one knows what's causing people to kill and eat each other. How do we know it wasn't contracted through bad food?”

  “Man I hope not,” I said. “I'd do just about anything right now for a Wetzel's Pretzel.”

  “Have you ever tried the pepperoni twist?” Benji sat up from the backseat. “They are amazing!”

  “Almost worth risking a run through a mall for,” I agreed.

  “Not me,” Felicity said. “I can't get the image of Ewan biting him out of my head. One minute he was chowing down on that stuff and sipping a gallon of soda. The next he was on stage biting Mario's jugular.”

  “That's understandable,” I said. “I'd probably feel the same way if that had happened to me.”

  “Turn off up here,” she said as we passed the sign announcing Ojai.

  “We're not going to Ojai,” I said, firmly shaking my head from side to side. “We talked about this. Especially now that we've given away most of our gas. We barely have enough to get to Hueneme.”

  “If it wasn't for me, we'd be walking right now,” she said. “Plus it was your genius idea to hand out our fuel.”

  “That was the only way to get them to let us go,” I loudly protested.

  “He was this close to just letting us go,” she said. “I had it all under control until you butted in to the conversation.”

  “Don't act like I didn't help,” I argued.

  “I saw your hand on the door,” she said. “You were getting ready to pick a fight. We’re lucky we're not all dead. If that guy wouldn't have come along and recognized me . . .”

  “You mean Scar?” I interrupted.

  “If Scar wouldn't have interrupted, we might all be dead on the side of the road now,” she said.

  “Don't worry,” I said. “I am sure they would have kept you for a pet, like you kept Rasputin.”

  “Let's put it to a vote,” Felicity said, ignoring my not so playful jab. “Everyone who thinks we should let me go see my mom and be with my family, especially after I just saved our lives from blood thirsty bikers, raise your hand.”

  She raised her own hand. The cocky smile on her face meant only one thing—that Benji had sided with her.

  “Come on Benji,” I said, adjusting the rearview mirror to see his hand fully extended. “We don't have enough gas for that.”

  “Fair is fair,” he said. “She has a point.”

  Sell out, I thought. Who's side are you on anyway?

  “Two to one,” she said. “Looks like we're heading to Ojai.”

  “I thought the saying was you can never go home again once you're famous,” I said, turning onto the connecter and taking us up and over a bridge toward Ojai. She cheered and Benji joined in.

  Little Judas, I thought. You'd do anything to get her attention.

  Was that a pang of jealousy I was feeling? I couldn't lie. I did like Felicity, but I was trying to figure out if that was because of who she was as a person or if it was because she was famous.

  Give it time, a dark little voice in the back of my mind said. Just give it time.

  “Don't worry,” she said. “I know my way around town like the back of my hand. I could guide you there blindfolded. Plus I know an out-of-the-way gas station you can hit up when it's time to go.”

  We drove the short distance east into town and she guided us along a series of roads toward her mom's place. Since she told me it was up on a hill I wasn't all that worried. For some reason zombies tended to move with the path of least resistance when left alone. Of course that was before they began to form hordes and knock down walls, so I couldn't be sure I wasn't just giving myself a false sense of security for nothing.

  The road up to her mom's place looked like something out of Christopher Robin's wildest fantasies. There was a crooked old tree and a wooden mailbox with her new husband's name on it, SWANSON. I half expected there to be a red balloon tied to it and one of the S's to be painted backwards.

  “This is it,” she burst out, unable to contain h
er excitement.

  “Did you really grow up here?” Benji asked.

  “Yep,” she said. “My dad lived in Las Vegas so my sister and I would have to see him twice a month for the first few years after the divorce. Mom gave up everything and moved us out here. When she remarried her new husband moved us in with him out here. It's paradise. I wish I had never left. After I started getting gigs in Hollywood she got an apartment out there too, on Gower. That place was literally a roach motel.” She laughed. Benji climbed up to hear her story. He was totally spellbound.

  “She didn't come to live with you?” I found it hard to believe. The media had always painted her mom to be the cause of all her problems, a money hungry failed actress who pushed one daughter into acting and the other into an early grave. Her little sister moved to Vegas at fourteen to live with her dad and ended up an underage stripper at a biker bar outside Glendale. She went missing for over a month then phoned in from Sturgis to say she was still alive. Two weeks later she was found stabbed to death in a motel in midtown Manhattan. No one knew how she got there. There were needle marks up and down her arms. Felicity was just starting to become a household name. Her sister's death pushed her over the edge. It was all the media would talk about for nearly a year. The crime was never solved.

  “After Cassie died, she thought about it,” Felicity said. “The media began hounding her, following her around the grocery store. It took a real toll on her marriage. I told her that she and Phil could come live with me. I was leaving to shoot in Mexico and they could stay there while I was gone. I was so excited when she said she would, but then she backed out at the last minute.”

  “Was that when you shot Double Trouble?” Benji asked.

  “It was,” Felicity said, tearing up.

  “What's wrong?” I asked.

  “I didn't realize how much I missed her,” Felicity said laughing and fanning her tears away with her hand. “I can't wait to see her.”

  “Here we go,” I said, driving up the hill. There was a Ford F150 with huge monster truck tires in the driveway and a Subaru next to it in front of a ranch style house. We parked and got out. I grabbed my blade and held it out in front of me, twisting from side to side and leaning over to stretch. I glanced around searching the trees for signs of people, living or dead. It was eerily quiet but we appeared to be alone.

  Thank God for small miracles, I thought.

  Benji and Felicity started to walk into the house but I called out to stop them.

  “Let me go first,” I said. “Just in case.”

  Felicity looked annoyed but she didn't protest. I walked in and she pointed to the right, toward the master bedroom. Moving along the hallway I could see pictures of her and her sister from when they were kids.

  Stay focused, I thought. There will be time to get the full tour later.

  I hadn't wanted to come to Ojai in the first place. I was damn sure I didn't want to get turned into the living dead for my troubles.

  The bedroom door was ajar. I pulled it back slowly. A dry wind coming in through the open window blew part of the curtains back, making me freeze in place. Then I saw them. On the bed, dressed in their wedding clothes, were an older man and woman. They were perfectly still with their eyes open and just the hint of a smile on their faces. The woman was holding a note in her hand.

  No, I thought. Not another note. Not more tragedy. Not today.

  But it wasn't in my control. Already Felicity was making her way into the room. Deep down inside I wished I could protect her from what she was about to see but I knew I couldn't. First Jackson and now this. It almost made me want to give her back the pills I'd confiscated at the beach house.

  “What's going on?” Her voice faltered. Even as she spoke she knew the answer.

  I stepped aside and bowed my head.

  “No,” she cried. “No!”

  “What is it?” Benji asked.

  Felicity turned to me.

  “Don't let him see this,” she said in a hushed tone. “Go out in the living room and wait for me. Please?”

  “Of course,” I said. I walked to the door and turned Benji around, leading him away.

  “Are they dead?” He looked up at me waiting for an answer he already knew.

  “Yeah,” was all I needed to say.

  “What are we doing?”

  “Giving Felicity some space,” I said. “It's a lot to take under normal circumstances, much less on the same day as Jax.”

  “I understand,” he said with a note of detached sadness in his voice. I realized that I was the only one who still had family in our group now. While I had seen more than my fair share of death I had never seen one of my relatives killed by a zombie or laid out dead. We sat there in silence listening to the wind blow through chimes on the porch and eventually Felicity came out holding the note.

  Benji ran over to her and threw his arms around her. She started crying again but she didn't seem as upset as I expected her to be. Perhaps she was just too exhausted to take it all in. She looked at me and held up the note.

  “Two weeks ago,” she said. “They took sleeping pills and died peacefully holding hands.”

  “I'm so sorry,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck and avoiding eye contact.

  “You know the crazy thing is that I had to find them today after I found Jackson this morning,” she said. “What kind of messed up karma is that?”

  “It's totally unfair,” I agreed with her, kicking the end of the sofa absentmindedly with my sneaker.

  “And how did they know I would come back here?” She wiped fresh tears from her eyes. “The letter is addressed to me. All it says is how much they loved me and how proud of me they are and not to give up hope no matter what. Why should I keep fighting when everyone I love is dead?”

  “I don't know,” I said. “Maybe they left if for you because you were all they had left?”

  “Yeah,” she said, “and now I'm on my own.”

  “You've got me,” Benji said wrapping his arms back around her waist. He began to cry. “My family died too. I had to watch them die, even my little sister. It was the worst thing I've ever seen. Every night when I go to bed I can still see her face looking at me, begging for help, right before they began biting her all over.”

  “I'm so sorry,” Felicity said, stroking his hair and looking at me. I held my hands up as if to say I didn't know where this was coming from. The truth was, Benji had never shared that much with me. Sure he told me about what happened with his family, but he was reserved and quiet. Most of the time he just kept to himself. It wasn't until that moment that I realized how bad he'd been hurting inside.

  “My first few weeks on the base were the hardest,” he said. “But then Xander began to look out for me. He had my back when the other kids teased me or stole from me or tried to beat me up. He's taken care of me, made sure I don't get eaten or left behind or kidnapped by neo Nazi's.”

  “Neo Nazi's?” Felicity threw me a puzzled look.

  “It's a long story,” I said.

  “We're family now,” Benji said, letting go of her and wiping his face. “We're all we got left now. I know that won't bring back your parents, but it's better than nothing.”

  Felicity leaned over and kissed him softly on the forehead. The look on his face said it all. I thought for a minute he was going to pass out right there.

  “Thank you,” she said, “little brother.”

  “What do you want to do?” I asked. “I'd be more than happy to help you bury them in the soft grass of the front yard if you like.”

  “I think that would be nice,” she said. “They deserve a proper burial.”

  Benji and I fetched some shovels from a tool shed out near the garage and set to work while Felicity began to poke around the house for things to take with us. She made fresh lemonade to cool us down from ripe lemons she picked on a tree in the yard and some sugar she found in the kitchen. There was no ice so we drank it warm but it still tasted amazing. Luckily the groun
d was moist and it took us less than an hour to dig one big hole for her parents to share. Benji was too squeamish to help move the bodies so he went with Felicity to pick wild flowers to line the bottom of the grave. When they had filled all the empty spaces up with colorful poppy flowers, honeysuckle, and larkspur, I set about the task of moving the bodies. Her mom was light and stiff as a board, which made her easy to move, but her stepfather was already beginning to decay. I had to hold my breath to avoid the putrid smell of decomposition coming off of him. Twice I lost my hold and nearly dropped him, but recovered in time. I set them both on the grass then slowly and carefully pulled them into the grave with me to make sure I didn't further disturb their corpses. When they were laid out side by side as they had been in their bedroom, I joined their hands together and closed their eyes.

  Benji made the sign of the cross over himself as I climbed out.

  “Thank you,” Felicity said. “Before you bury them I'd like to say a few words. She proceeded to pay tribute to her mother in loving detail, thanking her for all she had done for her and her sister. Then she lavished praise on her stepfather for his love and support, for taking care of her when she was young, and for caring for her mother and being a faithful companion to the end. When she was done we were all crying.

  “You can bury them now,” she said. Benji and I took up shovels and gently filled the hole back up with dirt. When we were done, she fixed a white crucifix to the top of the grave with their names written on it that she'd made while we were digging the grave.

  “Do you want to stay here tonight?” I asked. I wasn't sure that it was safe for us. In fact I was fairly certain it wasn't, but I would stand watch all night if I had to in order for her to have one last night with her mom in her childhood home.

  “No,” she said wiping away fresh tears.

  “Are you sure?” I was doing my best to be supportive. “We can take turns making sure it's safe tonight.”

  “I've already grabbed a few things that remind me of her,” she said. “I think it would be worse for me to stay. It's hard just being here now. I can't imagine waking up and not having her here.”