“You almost killed us. What the fuck were you --”
Allison closed the window.
“Not very appreciative,” I said.
“But alive,” she said.
We rounded the corner. Mt. Read Boulevard was the next intersection. Cars were backed up. Lights on. If I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn people were inside them just waiting for the light to turn green.
The flashing red made it clear. No one was waiting. And people were not going to be inside those abandoned vehicles. I was not about to give up the truck. It was one of the best things to come from attempting to raid the mall. I drove up over the curb. Our passengers bounced around in the back of the cab. Even with the window between us closed, I heard cussing. I went onto grass and straddled the sidewalk.
There was no stopping us now. Seemed like only a few more blocks and we’d be at my ex’s house. It was more like a couple of miles. They lived in Charlotte. Big house by the lake. Once we got there, though, I’d have my kids. Safe, and sound and with me. Then we would be able to plot our plan out of the country.
Part of me allowed a sense of goodness, and hopefulness, and a bit excitement to sink in. Until a loud bang shattered the euphoric feeling.
I gripped the wheel, but because of how fast I was driving, lost control of the truck right as we reached Mt. Read.
The crash sent my head forward. It slammed against the steering wheel. And darkness swallowed me whole.
Chapter Eighteen
“We’re not mall security, or cops.”
It was Allison talking. My eyelids fluttered open. Closed. Then parted slightly.
A dark face outlined in a halo of streetlight loomed in front of me. Over me, I realized. I was lying down. The grass felt wet. The ground hard, and cold. I smelled smoke. Gasoline.
“Chase?”
“Everyone okay?” I said.
“You drive like an asshole,” a man said.
“Everyone, but you.” Allison held my hand.
“I need to sit up.” I pushed up onto an elbow, shook my head slowly. My vision blurred. I closed my eyes.
“You okay?”
“Yeah. I will be.”
“You still drive like an asshole,” the man said.
“This is Josh,” Allison said, “and his brother Dave.”
“Thanks for stopping for us.” It was Dave. He held out his hand. I didn’t reach to shake it. Feared if I tried, I’d lose balance, my elbow would wobble, and I’d wind up flat on my back again.
“You’re welcome,” I said.
“We’re going to need to keep moving. The fast ones weren’t all that far behind us. Not far behind at all.” Josh made sense. Dave, I wasn’t a fan.
“Help me up,” I said.
Dave and Josh grabbed an arm and hoisted me onto my feet. Allison had an arm around my waist. “I’m good,” I said.
They let go. I didn’t fall. Wanted to lie down. It would have to wait. That old saying, there’d be plenty of time to sleep when I’m dead, came to mind. I didn’t speak it out loud. No sense stating the obvious.
“So what’s our plan?” Dave said.
“We’re going to get my kids.”
“We are?”
I shook my head. “No. She and I are. I gave you guys a ride. The truck’s totaled. You’re on your own.”
“On our own to do what? To go where?”
“Chase, we’d like to come with you. There’s safety in numbers,” Josh said. “Right now, I don’t see any benefit to splitting up. I mean, we could, you know. But there’s no point.”
I took a moment and I closed my eyes again. Just felt better that way. Eyes closed. World lost on the opposite side of the eyelids. I saw nothing but darkness, but that darkness was more than comforting. It felt tranquil.
“He sleeping?” Dave said.
And the tranquility shattered. If Dave was going to journey with them, he needed to learn to keep his mouth shut. I couldn’t handle someone without a filter for their words.
“There something seriously wrong with you?” I said.
Dave came at me. Fist raised. Josh stepped between us. I wanted to deck the guy. The way my head spun, and his size--at least a hundred pounds more than I was--part of me was silently thankful for the interjection.
Josh pushed Dave back. He turned and looked at me.
“This isn’t going to work,” I said and waved my hands flaunting discouragement. I was not interested in them tagging along. This was about my kids. And, the more I thought about it, Allison. These guys would slow me down. I didn’t need to explain my every move to them. I wasn’t going to be looking for permission or a general consensus on what to do next. The shots were mine. I was calling them.
Josh put an arm around my shoulder. He whispered, “Can I talk to you for a second?”
“Are you kidding me?” I shrugged his arm off my body and took a step back. “We’re being chased, hunted, by . . . by fucking zombies, dude. Zombies. I don’t have the time, the patience or even the fucking desire to give you a second. My kids are home with their zombie-fuck of a mother and her husband. They are in danger. They are holed up somewhere inside that house waiting for me to come and rescue them. Me. Their daddy. A second? Give you a second? Buddy, you and your friend there--”
“He’s my brother.”
I rolled my eyes. “Go fuck yourselves.”
I walked away. Away from Josh. Away from Dave. Away from Allison. I started in the direction I needed to be headed. Talking time was over.
I thought.
Josh fell in step beside me. “My brother, Dave. He is special. Fell when he was young. Our father dropped him in the driveway when he was a baby. His brain swelled. Had part of his skull cut away. It all healed, but he’s never been the same. He’s not like retarded, but he is special. His mind works a little different. He has trouble figuring out things, or behaving properly. It isn’t his fault. So I just wanted to apologize for the things he’s said so far. He was out of line, but he doesn’t know it. And I don’t hold it against you for not wanting us to join the two of you. I respect that. But before we parted, go our separate ways, I just wanted to apologize.”
I stood there. Chewed on my lips. Contemplated everything this stranger just said to me. Maybe because I didn’t move, Josh felt encouraged to continue. I let him, half listening while I let stuff just sink in. Not just what was being said, but everything. Was like when I closed my eyes and Dave insulted me, only my eyes were open, and I couldn’t hear Dave talking.
“Anyway, thanks for picking us up back there. Good luck finding your kids.” Josh held his hand out.
“I know where they are.”
“Okay.” Josh pulled his hand away. “Take care.”
Josh walked toward his brother. “We ready?”
Dave showed his palms, raised his shoulders. “What? We ain’t going with them?”
“Not this time, Dave.”
“So where we going? I mean, what are we supposed to do now? I dropped my bat somewhere. I think when we crashed. I don’t even have my bat.” Dave walked around in circles, head down, perhaps searching for his lost baseball bat.
I pressed my thumbs against my temples.
“You’re sending them away?” Allison stood beside me.
“Sending them away? They’re free to do whatever they want. This is ridiculous.” I huffed, actually huffed, and through my hands up in surrender. “Alley.”
“Chase.”
My shoulders deflated. “Josh, wait. Wait up.”
The brothers stopped walking. They didn’t turn. They didn’t start back.
I looked at Allison. “I’m not begging them.”
Allison crossed her arms over her chest.
“Really? This falls on me?”
She arched an eyebrow.
“Josh,” I said, wasn’t yelling. If he didn’t hear me, then at least I tried. Alley couldn’t be upset with me for trying. “Why don’t you guys hang out with us for a while?”
> Chapter Nineteen
Didn’t take long for the four of us to become thieves.
Traveling close to houses, we kept to the shadows, and at one point, stumbled upon an armory of yard tools. I gave up the hockey stick for a wood handled shovel. Allison stuck the flashlight through a belt loop and retrieved hedge clippers. Josh tucked a hand shovel into each pocket, and carried a hoe like he was an Amazon native armed with a spear. Thing resembled a fireman's halligan bar. Dave went all old school with a four-tined pitchfork.
There was no denying it, try as I might. It did feel safer with the four of us. Perhaps it was the additional weapons. More than likely, it was the two extra men, and Dave being a brick wall at that. It wasn’t that Allison couldn’t handle herself. She was still alive and had proven to me that she could. She’d destroyed the fat zombie that had attacked her from out of the bathroom. No, this was something different. Maybe it was because these two guys didn’t mean as much to me. Didn’t mean I didn’t care, or wouldn’t have their back. Just meant, with Alley, it was different. I was too close.
We didn’t move house to house, hiding behind bushes. Could have. Instead, we stayed close to houses, and walked across yards. Four wide, instead of one behind the other. We started that way. Taking cover behind anything and everything we could find to take cover behind. When we went ten minutes without seeing a single zombie, we got lax. I knew we’d be using our new garden tools soon. Just wasn’t sure when. And relaxed or not, the knot in the pit of my stomach was tied, tight.
My cell phone rang.
We all stopped. I dug it out of my pocket. Hands fumbling. It wasn’t just that I was anxious to answer, the ringing sounded like the Liberty Bell tolling in the silence that enveloped the area.
“Chase, the fuck, man?”
I shot Dave a look that should have said, shut your fucking mouth or I’ll use the blade on this shovel to slice your head off your body and bury it deep up your ass. Must have worked, because he broke eye contact and settled for looking down at the pavement.
It was my daughter. “Char? Charlene?”
“We left the house, Daddy. We had to. Mom, and Donald--they’re sick. They tried to attack us.”
“Where is Cash?”
“Here. He’s with me.” She was sobbing. Her words difficult to understand. The next few words though, I didn’t catch them.
“Honey, what? What was that? Where are you?”
“We hid in the garage. Don came out there,” she said. “He looked crazy. I told him to stay away. I put Cash behind me. I was protecting him.”
“You’re an awesome sister, Char.”
“But he wouldn’t stop. He kept coming at us. I hurt him,” she said.
Can’t deny it. A bit of pride swelled inside me. Think my chest protruded some to show it, too. “It’s okay, honey. These things -- they aren’t human. Not anymore. Where are you guys now?”
“I chopped off his hand, Daddy. I used an ax. It was his. It was leaning against the wall. I used it to chop off his hand.”
I couldn’t imagine. It had to have been a nightmare. She was a kid. Fourteen. Chopping off a hand would disturb me, and I’m as fucked up as they come. “You had to, Charlene. To protect yourself. It’s okay. Are you okay?”
A few seconds of sniffling. “I’m--”
The line went dead. “Charlene? Charlene?”
I looked at the phone. Call was dropped. Towers are either working quadruple time or sporadically. And the green bar at the top of the display let me know the phone was not going to last much longer. I should have stopped home; at least I could have thrown some things, including my charger into a backpack.
I redialed her number. Fast busy signal. I disconnected the call. Tried again. Fast busy. I almost threw my phone. Took tons of strength not to. It was the only means of contact with my kids at this point. That single thought kept me from smashing the palm-sized piece of plastic onto the pavement.
Allison had a hand on my shoulder. Might have been there the whole time. “They’re not there?”
“They ran. Char and Cash took off. My fucking ex and her husband attacked them.” I shook my head. I thought it would be easy to say, that the pride I’d felt would make me want to tell everyone, but the words were trapped in my throat, and sobs of my own sat on top of them. “She used an ax on the guy. Cut off his hand.”
“Where did they go?”
“She didn’t get to tell me,” I said. I swallowed it. All of it. There’d be a time for it, later. Now was not that time. “We’re still going to the house. I need to see what’s happened.”
“You think that’s best? We know they are not there.” Allison’s eyes stared into mine, like she was trying to figure out my motivation for still going to my ex’s if the kids were no longer there.
“We’re not going anywhere right now, guys.” Josh stared straight ahead. A motley crue looking group, a gang of people, filled the streets down near Maiden Lane. It intersected Mt. Read. A gas station, a vacant gas station, a Rite Aid and a small Greek restaurant occupied the four corners. “They’re coming this way.”
“Slow, jagged movement,” Allison said. “Zombies.”
“We’ve got to get off the road. Completely.” Josh ran toward the closest house. He tried the knob. “Locked.”
He was right. We needed to get into a house. Ride this wave out and hope the monsters just passed by. Best I could tell, there were forty, maybe fifty of them. They seemed different from the other zombies encountered. These appeared organized. Just the way they walked the street together gave off a sense of order, order I didn’t like seeing.
“Should we back track?” Dave was looking the way we’d come.
“Try those houses,” I said. “Be quiet about it.”
Dave took off, running up the porch steps of the house we’d just passed.
“That’s the retirement home across the street,” Allison said. I looked. “We don’t want to be anywhere near there. You know they all got the shot.”
I tried a smile. It felt awkward. It wasn’t for my benefit. “We’re going to find a house. We’ll get in--”
“Chase!”
I closed my eyes. Not sure what part of quiet confused Dave. Was it the whole word? The double syllables? I took Allison by the hand. “See, we’ll hole up in the house until they pass. Then we’ll be on the move again. Won’t be in there long at all.”
Josh was already running toward the house his brother had found. Allison and I fell in behind him. We stayed in the shadows as best as possible. The zombies coming our way were in the street, under the lights. Hopefully they didn’t have vision like cats.
Dave stood on the white porch. He held open the screen door to the house. He waved us in. It was the shit-ass stupid grin he wore that made me want to pop him in the mouth. Tried to remember the fact that he wasn’t right in the head. “Good job,” I said, instead of a knuckle sandwich. The guy beamed.
Once inside, we shut the door, engaged the locks.
“We need to clear the place,” Josh said.
“What?” Allison looked from Josh to me.
“He’s right. Before we go boarding up windows and locking doors. We have no idea who might be in here.”
With the little moonlight available or it was a street light, I don’t know--don’t care, I saw Dave’s fingers on the wall.
“Don’t touch the lights,” I said.
“But we can’t see anything,” he said.
“David, leave the lights off.”
I looked outside. The zombies were not walking as slow as I’d thought. They weren’t directly outside the house we’d hidden in, but they were close.
“I have this.” Allison pulled the flashlight out of her belt loop. “The batteries died, but if we can find some?”
And then the living room we were all in, went bright. Lit up.
Allison cursed, and fumbled with the flashlight. “They were dead,” she said, switching the light off. “They didn’t work before.”
>
“Shit,” I said. I had been looking out the window, fingers slightly parting thin drapes. “One of those things is . . . ah shit. They’re coming this way.”
“The zombies?”
“No, Dave. The pizza guy. I placed an order when I knew we were going to be here for a while,” I said. No idea if Dave grasped sarcasm. Didn’t seem to. Part of me thought he was dying to ask what toppings I got on the pie.
“He’s right,” Josh said. “We don’t have time to clear the place. We have to lock it down. Good.”
“This picture window is huge.”
“Everyone just be quiet. Shhh.” I said. “Josh, you and Dave go look for a back door. Stay there. If things go bad out here, and as long as it stays clear back there, we’re going to need a way out. Fast. And Josh?”
He stopped. “Yeah?”
“Stay low, away from windows. We can’t be making a lot of noise. Right now, I think the only thing we got on our side is the flimsy locks on the doors. They start breaking windows, we’re running for it. And Josh?”
“Huh?”
“Allison, give him your radio,” I said. “They make a lot of static, Josh. Only use it if you have to. And Josh?”
He cocked a hip and sighed at me. “Yeah?”
“Take Dave,” I said.
“I don’t like this,” Allison said when we were alone. “This seems worse than when we were in the security office.”
I didn’t have time to compare dire situations. The stairs that led upstairs were directly behind the front door. “Stand behind me. Watch the stairs.”
“Watch them for what?”
I put my shoulder against the door. “Don’t be stupid.”
I pressed my eye to the peephole. At least one of those things most definitely saw Allison turn on the flashlight. But not all of them. They were all off the street now. Forty, fifty of them. And they were on the lawn. They were walking right toward the front window.
“Don’t make a sound.”
Chapter Twenty
We were locked inside a house. We might not be alone. The zombies outside saw us in here. It was accidental, I know. Alley should have known better than to switch on the flashlight, even if she thought the batteries were dead. Now we were split up. Josh and Dave were somewhere in the back of this place, hopefully by an exit, keeping an eye out for creatures back there, while Allison and I had the front door blocked and were silently hopeful the things would lose interest and continue their trek south down Mt. Read. Too bad there wasn’t any traffic. Would love seeing the lot of them struck by vehicles.
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