Love in the Time of Zombies

by James, Jill

  Not believing her good luck, she spoke louder. “Anyone home?”

  Still nothing.

  Miranda rushed down the stairs to get Seth.

  Seth started thrashing around in the wheelbarrow, threatening to overturn it. She grabbed a hold of the handles and held it still.

  With limited options, she dumped the wheelbarrow over and Seth to the ground. He moaned slightly, the cap still in his mouth. Moving inches at a time, with her hands under his arms, she got the man through the door, across the floor, and to the stairs.

  A few steps. Take a break.

  A few steps. Take a break.

  With the sunrise peeking through tattered curtains, Miranda finally got Seth into the apartment and tied to an enormous oak dining-room table with curtains ripped from the windows before she collapsed on the floor a safe distance away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Shannon Drake sat up as the sun came through a tattered curtain hanging half off the rod and flooded the empty room. Jed and Amy were tangled around each other across the space. The young nurse was moaning and struggling in Jed’s arms.

  She jumped up and rushed to the young man’s side. Amy’s eyes were glazed over with a death haze. Her teeth snapped closer and closer to Jed’s arms.

  “Please, Amy. Stop.” His pleas fell on dead ears. The woman’s struggles grew stronger as Jed started crying and appeared to have given up.

  With her added height and weight, Shannon grabbed the girl by the shoulders and flung her across the room. The thing rushed back across the space to meet the doctor’s foot to her stomach. They both heard the crack as Amy’s head connected with the windowsill. Jed winced, but Shannon didn’t have time as the girl came at her again. This time she met her with a headlock. She twisted her arms, a loud crack sounded in the silence, and Amy’s slight body fell to the dirty floor.

  “But it was only a scratch. She was fine when we went to sleep,” Jed’s confused voice echoed in the now quiet room.

  “It must have been enough. So close to her carotid artery, it probably just traveled that much faster through her system,” Shannon provided, using medical jargon to distance herself from the senseless death of someone who had been her friend.

  She turned away and gathered the knapsack and some belongings they had collected on their way to this apartment building. Jed grabbed her arm and spun her around.

  “We can’t just leave her like that. Or is she just another dead body to you? Do you see so many as a doctor that they just aren’t people anymore?”

  Grabbing his hand, she pried his fingers off, and then held them. “That isn’t fair. Amy was a friend. A good friend. But this is the world we live in now. We can’t risk burying her. We won’t have time. Those are the facts.”

  He pulled away from her. “We can at least wrap her up. At least say good-bye.”

  Dropping the knapsack, she hugged him. He fought at first, until his sobs grew and he held on to her like his anchor in a storm. “Yes, we can do that,” she whispered.

  Jed got a blanket from a closet while Shannon arranged Amy’s broken neck and straightened out her arms and legs. Together, they rolled her in the blanket and then sat on the floor, one on each side.

  Shannon took off her lab coat and placed it over Amy’s body. Jed removed the Star of David necklace he wore, pulling it over his head. She watched as the young man lifted Amy and put it on her. They bowed their heads, but she was out of prayers for any of them. If God was there, he wasn’t listening.

  Finally, they gathered their stuff and left the apartment, shutting the door silently behind them. Jed pulled a marker out of his pocket and scrawled Amy across the beige paint. His hand shook. “Shit, I don’t even know her last name.”

  He looked at the floor but she still caught a glimpse of his red, flushed cheeks.

  “Johannson,” Shannon whispered.

  He wrote it and added September 21, 0 AZ below her name.

  “AZ?”

  “After the Z virus,” Jed said, tucking the marker into his pocket.

  The trip down the stairs passed in silence, Shannon listening for the undead and Jed lost in his misery, arms wrapped around his stomach. Nothing came at them from any of the apartments. She pushed open the glass doors in the entryway. The silence in the streets was overpowering. People can get used to anything over time, and six months of shuffling feet, moans at all hours, and the screams of the dying can become just background noise, like cars, airplanes, and kids playing had been before.

  The sun was halfway to noon and no birdsong filled the air. No voices broke the quiet. No moans sent them running. Shannon’s head whipped back and forth, waiting for the expected horde to appear. Nothing.

  “Maybe they all died in the hospital attack?” Jed questioned.

  “Maybe. But that’s a lot of zombies to just be gone.”

  “Maybe the general took them with him?”

  “What did you say?” Shannon whispered back, afraid to tempt fate by speaking any louder.

  “He can control the zombies.”

  “What?” she asked back just a little too loud.

  A moan echoed from around the side of the building. An old man stumbled into view. He was more skeletal remains than a person. His clothes held what was left of him together. The stench reached them before he did.

  Jed dropped his pack and started rummaging through it. Shannon grabbed his shoulder. “Not now, we have to go.”

  He pulled away. “This will only take a minute.”

  She searched the area. The walking undead guy appeared to be alone; no friends joined it yet. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted bright blue in the road. A semi truck with a trailer sat not a hundred yards away. Turning back to tell Jed, she stopped speaking in the middle of talking. The sight in front of her was unfathomable.

  The young man held a voice recorder in his hand. She couldn’t tell if it were on but it must be because the abomination stopped shuffling along and stood in place, swaying to music only it seemed able to hear, his head turned up to the sky.

  “We need to go now,” she whispered, yanking on Jed’s shoulder. “We have to let the people in Brentwood know.”

  Slowly, she stepped backward, turning to check for obstacles, gazing in morbid wonder at the unmoving zombie. After what seemed a century, her back hit the truck’s bumper. She let go of Jed and slid along it to the door. Seth Ripley was painted across it in bright white lettering. Shannon gazed right and left but she didn’t see the truck driver anywhere. Her heart thundered in her chest with the memory of leaving Carla Ripley, along with the other patients, at the hospital.

  Climbing up, she pulled the door open and slid inside. The keys were in the ignition but Seth was not in the truck as she risked a quick backward glance to the sleeper. From her higher vantage point, she stared as far as she could see, but nothing.

  The other door opened and Jed climbed in. “Where’s Ripley?”

  “He’s not here. But the truck is. I can’t turn this thing around so we’ll have to take back roads to Brentwood and hope the general’s having problems on the freeway. We have to get that recording to the Brentwood group.”

  ♦♦♦

  Walking back from the communications trailer, I chewed on my nails. Three days and we’d still had no word from Seth. Nothing after he’d left the river and headed to the hospital. The hospital had gone silent too and the looks shooting back and forth from Canida and Luther had the hair standing up on the back of my neck and my nails bitten down to the quick. The tension in the trailer had been thick enough to choke my breathing.

  I’d been berating myself for days. Why had I let Seth leave with anger between us? When I wasn’t chastising myself, Michelle was doing it for me. All I wanted was to see him again and apologize. Life was too short to let arguments get between relationships. We should have talked, but he’d walked away so fast and I’d waited too long to try to call him back.

  Feminine voices called my name. I took a few more steps be
fore it registered that Michelle and Bobbie were calling me over. A small group of ladies were gathered at the edge of the garden. Several women seemed to be taking a break and leaning on hoes and rakes.

  Michelle rushed over, linked arms, and dragged me to the group. Looking around, I saw several faces I vaguely knew. These were the women who keep us fed, and the camp running, while I’d been out shooting zombs and getting supplies.

  “Anything?” Bobbie asked.

  “Nothing,” I whispered, my voice catching. “Nothing from Concord at all. It’s as if the town is gone. I don’t know how big it was, but they’re not getting anyone on the radio.”

  “About a hundred, maybe hundred twenty thousand. Before…” a small, very pregnant woman provided before her voice trailed off and tears gathered in her eyes.

  Michelle moved to the young woman’s side and gave her a hug and a shoulder to cry on.

  A truck’s air horn sounded from outside the mall. My head whipped around as the cargo containers rose and a dark-blue semi rolled inside. My heart stopped and then raced wildly.

  “Seth,” I whispered. My gaze swept the truck, but the only people were a blonde woman and a man with long hair and glasses on the seat beside her.

  “It’s okay. He’s in the back with the patients,” I murmured, a cold chill sweeping over my body as the truck pulled up to the communications trailer.

  My feet were frozen to the ground as Canida and Luther pounded down the stairs and rushed to the truck. Jack hopped up and pulled the door open and the blonde tumbled out into his arms. The young man opened his door and ran around the front of the truck. I heard excited yelling, but the words are scrambled by the wind and the roaring in my ears.

  I didn’t know I’d taken the steps until I found myself at the vehicle. The guy was yelling at Paul Luther and playing some type of voice recorder for him. Jack Canida was kneeling on the ground, the blonde laying on the asphalt.

  “Where’s Seth?” I yelled. At least, I wanted to yell, but the words came out in a harsh whisper. “Where’s Seth?”

  The guy’s head swung up, his blue eyes locked to mine. “We never saw him. Just the truck.”

  Two steps and I found myself in his face with handfuls of T-shirt in my grasp. “Did you look for him? Or did you just run away like a coward?”

  Canida’s gruff tones penetrated my anger, as he demanded I let go. I opened my hands and stepped back. The guy fell back against the truck’s grill. He shook his head.

  “He wasn’t there. I swear. We looked.”

  My breath came in heavy pants. Wiping my hands on my jeans, I turned away. Where was he? Where was Seth? Searching my head and my heart, I find nothing. No pang. No grief. He wasn’t dead. I would know it. Wouldn’t I?

  Michelle came up and wrapped me in a hug. I breathed deep of her strawberry-scented shampoo. The essence of my friend, sunshine and happiness, wrapped up in a bottle. She and that fragrance never failed to calm me.

  “Commander Jack said the doctor and her friend have stuff to tell us. He’s calling a group meeting at the theater. Adults only.” Michelle’s words brought me back to the present. Finally, we’d have some answers to what was going on out there.

  With Michelle on one side and Bobbie on the other, we made our way to the movie theater. The lingering scent of movie house popcorn had my salivary glands working overtime. Happy memories of Saturday afternoon matinees juxtaposed with the hell we lived in now.

  We found seats near the front and waited as the rest of the adult members of our community filed in, shuffled down the rows, and found a seat.

  Michelle whispered in my ear. I laughed. Some old habits don’t die. No matter how old you are, you still whisper in a theater. “The blonde is a doctor from the Concord hospital. I think I heard the guy say his name was Jed.”

  “Shhh,” came from Bobbie on Michelle’s other side as Jack Canida jumped up on the stage in front of the screen. Paul Luther followed.

  Jack put his hands up and the room hushed. “I called this meeting because we finally have some news from Concord. This is Dr. Shannon Drake and her friend, Jed Long. They just came in from over the hill with news for us.”

  Canida’s face wore a look I hadn’t seen before. Even at the height of clearing our section of town of the undead, Jack always had a look of optimism. Not anymore. Jack had aged in the short time he’d heard from the doctor to now.

  I tried to swallow against the knot in my throat.

  The woman stepped forward. “I’m Dr. Drake. Shannon, please. We…” She motioned to the guy I’d shoved against the truck. He looked like the stereotypical comic-book-store owner, long hair in a ponytail and glasses sliding down his nose. “Jed and I were at the Concord hospital. We escaped. Along with Amy…” Her voice trailed off as Jed wiped his eyes and put his glasses back on.

  My gut told me this Amy had turned…and been put down. They had that look in their faces. The one people get when they have to kill someone they loved or cared about.

  “We escaped from the attack.”

  Voices sprang up across the room. Jack raised his hands. “Let them finish. Hold your questions.”

  “We were attacked by a man calling himself General Peters. He didn’t have a bunch of men.” She looked over the crowd. “Probably less than you have here right now. What he did have was an army—an army of the undead.”

  “Right.” Jim Evans stood up a few seats over, putting his hands on his hips. “You want us to believe he just told them to attack and they listened?”

  Dr. Drake motioned Jed forward. “This is Jed Long. He’s a ham radio operator. He’ll explain it.”

  Jed stepped forward. “I’m sure some of you know that communications have been spotty this week. There’s been a subsonic sound on the airwaves. I don’t know how to truly explain it. Think of a dog whistle. We can’t hear it, but dogs can. The signal on the airwaves is something the zombs can hear, but we can’t. Not really.”

  He turned on the voice recorder in his hand and turned the volume knob.

  I didn’t hear anything, but my fillings could. Rubbing my jaw, the pain stayed and wouldn’t go away. Others must have felt it too. I heard hissing and people grabbed and rubbed their faces. Elderly Mr. Buster slapped a hand to his forehead and I remembered he had a steel plate there, a souvenir of the Iraqi War.

  I heard the click of a button and it stopped.

  “When this played at the hospital the zombs just stood there. Swaying to something only they could hear. The other guys, the live ones, could walk among them and nothing happened. They put vests on them. They made the zombs into suicide bombers. They took down the hospital in minutes. They killed almost everyone.”

  “Almost everyone?” Jack asked.

  Jed stuttered. “They took the young women and some doctors. They had lab coats, I think they were doctors. Killed everyone else.”

  “When was this?”

  Shannon spoke up. “We left a day and a half ago. We took the back roads so it took longer, but we didn’t want to run into General Peters on the freeway. I was sure I wouldn’t find you guys still here, but we had to take a chance to let you know what you’ll face. General Peters’ men said The Streets of Brentwood were next.”

  A cacophony of voices rose in the theater. Everyone wanted to know everything at once. Jack raised his hands again. “One at a time.”

  I half-listened as questions were asked and answered. My mind was far outside the walls of this shopping center. Besides, I only had two questions and neither Shannon nor Jed could answer them. Where was Seth? And why wasn’t this ‘General’ Peters here yet?

  Chapter Fourteen

  Apartment 10B

  Concord, California

  Miranda Stevens’ mind was a centrifuge on overdrive. Should she stay? Should she go? Was it better to go it alone? Or was it better to wait for Seth? It had taken most of a day to get Seth Ripley up ten flights of stairs in the apartment building next to the pharmacy. Height equaled safety, as far as she
was concerned. All the apartment doors had been open as if an evacuation had taken place at some time. She’d found no one inside, but plenty of supplies. If they’d been forced to leave, the tenants had left in a rush. Cupboards overflowed with boxed and canned goodness.

  A moan from the bedroom drew her attention back to the present. She stood up and went to the doorway. Seth writhed on the bed like a caged animal, his wrists and ankles tied to the bed. Had it been two days? No, maybe it was three—in any case, he hadn’t turned. He’d soaked the sheets through and the acrid smell of sweat wafted through the whole place. She didn’t dare open a window for ventilation with his yells and screams coming without notice.

  She tugged off her cap and ran a hand over her buzzed hair. Grimacing, she yanked the cap back on. Her gaze swept to the man’s injured hand. Blood crusted on the bandage wrapped around what was left of his hand. Miranda swallowed the bile in her throat. She’d thrown up enough when she’d amputated his pinky and ring finger to try to save his life. And the jury was still out on that. Maybe she’d done all that damage for nothing.

  The stench of burnt flesh would never leave her. She leaned up against the doorjamb. It was what it was. The curling iron that ran on butane was all she could find in the drug store to cauterize the wound she’d made of his hand.

  “Now we wait,” she whispered in the empty silence of the dwelling, only broken by Seth’s thrashing and whimpering.

  “Mama,” he cried from the bed.

  She went over and brushed the greasy strands of hair back from his heated forehead. He was burning up. Getting a bottle of water from the nightstand, she forced some down his throat and poured some on a washrag she’d used to wipe him down.

  “No Mama. I’m sorry, Seth. You just have me.”

  His eyes remained a beautiful hazel color every time she raised the lids to look. No glassy, opaque look—yet. She pulled down the sheet and ran the damp cloth across his chest. He was so beautiful, so young. At least compared to Peters. A shudder ran through her body as her fingers trailed down his chest with the washcloth. Dark hair covered his torso and ran straight down to the buckle on his pants. Her fingertips grazed his belt buckle and she jumped back with a hiss as if the metal had burned her. The man was incoherent. She wouldn’t be any better than Peters or his men.