Alive! Not Dead!

by R. M. Smith

  She lit our kerosene lamp as she left with it. As soon as she was out of the room, Vera looked at Rachel and asked Rachel “Well aren’t you going to go sit with your man now that Mindy’s gone?”

  Mason looked at Vera questioning.

  Rachel said, “Shut up, Vera.”

  Vera took a long drag off her cigarette.

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You’re a sick whore,” Vera said still looking at Rachel. “You are a whore, aren’t you?”

  “You better shut up, bitch!”

  “What the hell are you two talking about?” Mason asked, confused. “Vera I’ve never heard you talk this way. What’s gotten into you?”

  She took another long drag off the cigarette.

  I still was quiet.

  “You’re a whore too, aren’t you Dan” Vera asked me.

  Rachel was pissed.

  “No, I’m not a whore,” I calmly said. “But you do need to be quiet.”

  “Ok what’s this about?” Mason asked.

  Vera said “They fucked. Right here in this room. Rachel and Dan did. I saw them.”

  Mason looked at me. He didn’t say a word.

  Rachel was silent, too. She didn’t want to say anything else or it would have gotten a lot worse.

  Mason finally said to me “But you two just got married…”

  I said “Don’t worry about it, Mason. It’s not your business.”

  “Fine,” he said.

  “It’s not yours either, Vera; so please, shut up.”

  “You’re a bastard,” she whispered loudly to me. “How could you?”

  I said “Just shut up.”

  She was quiet. She kept looking at me then back at Rachel. She was very upset with us.

  The fire popped.

  Vera acted like she wanted to say more, but she didn’t. I think she realized that her voice meant nothing. What was done was done. She couldn’t change it.

  Didn’t mean she had to be happy about it, though.

  I also knew that Rachel was pissed off. She distinctly told Vera not to say a word – but Vera did. Vera spilled the beans about it all. I hoped that she wouldn’t tell Mindy. That would be so devastating for her.

  And for me.

  Mason cocked his head to the side, listening. He really didn’t want to say anything, but he said, “Do you hear that?”

  “What?” Vera asked.

  I listened too. There was a strange pitch in the air. For a second I thought it was maybe the sound of the log burning. It had a quiet high pitch like the sound of water evaporating out of the burning log as it heated up. Then, it was quieter. It was barely audible but it lasted for a few seconds, then was quiet like a…

  It was Mindy screaming!

  “It’s Mindy!” Mason and I both shouted together.

  We both jumped off the couches. We ran toward the buffet. We forgot to bring our kerosene lamps. We ran through the dark casino. Her screaming got louder as we got closer.

  It was very dark in the buffet. Mindy’s screams were coming from the kitchen.

  We slammed through the doors. It was pitch black in there.

  “Mindy! You in here?”

  “Yes…” she cried. “Oh God, the lamp went out!”

  “The lamp…”

  “I can’t see, Dan!”

  “Oh, shit! It’s ok, we’re here.”

  “Who else is here?” Mindy asked.

  “It’s me, hon,” Mason said. “You’ll be fine.”

  “Here, take my hand” I said. “Just follow right behind me.”

  She took my hand. I led her out through the buffet and into the hall. “There. Better?” I asked.

  “I still can’t see anything,” Mindy said. “How can you tell where we are?”

  “Instinct,” I said, joking.

  Mason was behind us, not saying a word, just following closely.

  We could see better the closer we got to the lobby.

  Rachel met us at the doors. “Everything ok?” she asked.

  “Fine,” I said.

  As we stepped into the lobby, we saw that Vera was now lying on the couch.

  Mindy and I came through the door first. Mindy screamed. Blood was pouring from Vera’s neck. It had been slit from ear to ear.

  Mason hadn’t seen it yet. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

  Suddenly Rachel grabbed Mason roughly from behind. She held the same red handled dagger to Mason’s throat that she had just used on Vera. Savagely she slit his throat. She let the dagger clatter to the floor at their feet after the deed was done.

  Mason went down to the floor on both knees holding his throat. Blood washed over his hand. There was confusion and pain is his eyes as he went down. He fell onto his back.

  “What are you doing?” Mindy screamed. She burst into tears. “Oh my God!”

  I knew why Rachel did it. I felt so utterly horrible. It was all my fault. I never should have given into her.

  Rachel started crying too. She stepped over Mason’s dead body. “I’m sorry, but I heard them conspiring against us last night. They were planning on killing all of us. Mason said there wasn’t enough food left for us. They were going to kill us so they would have enough food for themselves until spring.”

  “Why would they want to kill us?” Mindy screamed, crying. “We were doing fine! Oh God, Mason! Vera!”

  We were standing next to Vera’s couch. Her neck was split open.

  Behind us, Mason sat up.

  A large dripping bruise had appeared on the right side of his face. It went from the top of his head down the right side of his neck. His eyes were blank as he got to his feet.

  He grabbed Rachel’s shoulder from behind. She had no idea that he had come back. He took a deep ripping bite out of the top of her shoulder. She screamed, trying to fight him away.

  Mindy screamed.

  Vera sat up.

  Blood washed down the front of her Harley jacket. She stood up. She reached her hands out for Mindy. Quickly, I jumped between the two of them and shoved Vera back. She stumbled, falling into the fireplace. She caught on fire, struggling to stand up.

  Mason was now gnawing into Rachel’s shoulder blade. Rachel was trying to get away, but Mason was too strong. He pushed her down. She fell onto her back. Mason fell on her.

  Vera was back up, now on fire. Her long gray hair was burning. Her arms were outstretched, on fire, reaching for Mindy and I.

  Mindy was screaming and crying.

  I kicked Vera back into the fire again.

  Mason scratched Rachel’s shirt open. She rolled over onto her front, trying to crawl away as Mason tried to grab her and pull her back to him. He was fumbling with her feet, trying to get hold. Blood saturated her shoulder.

  Vera was struggling to get out of the fire, but she couldn’t. The fire had burned into the muscles of her arms. She had no way to get out of the fire. She lay there struggling and burning. The smell of burnt flesh was overwhelming in the room.

  Quickly, I ran over to Mason. He didn’t pay attention to me. The red handled dagger that Rachel used to kill him was now lying on the ground. I picked it up. Cursing, I jammed it into the back of Mason’s head. He went face down into Rachel’s torn back.

  Mindy was standing in the middle of the room, crying loudly.

  “I need to do this to Rachel too,” I whispered. “She’ll change into a zombie…”

  Mindy screamed “No!”

  I had to kill Rachel. Even though I knew she would eventually die from Mason’s attack, I had to kill her. I told myself that there wasn’t a way to save her. We had no medical training to save a person injured in such a way.

  It was the humane thing to do, right?

  I convinced myself that yes, it was the humane thing to do. Yes, she was going to die from Mason’s attack. Yes, there was no way to save her.

  You rotten bastard, I told myself. You’re going to kill her to get her out of the way! You’re afraid she’s going to heal up and tell Mindy all
about your affair! You’re afraid she’s going to heal up and want to have more fuck sessions with you. You go ahead and kill her! Get her out of the way! Vera and Mason are already gone. They knew about you fucking her. Now kill Rachel. Make it sound like she is going to turn into a zombie. Make Mindy feel sorry for her.

  I dragged Mason’s body off of Rachel. Her shoulder was covered in blood.

  In pain, Rachel laid there, out of breath. “Dan…” she said softly.

  I jammed the knife into the side of Rachel’s skull.

  Her head clonked down onto the tile.

  “Oh my God!” Mindy cried. “Oh Jesus.”

  We burned them all.

  Even though the smell was noxious, we stood in silence watching them burn.

  Our friends were gone.

  We moved our tent back into the buffet. The smell was too strong in the lobby.

  We didn’t talk very much. Mindy cried a lot. I cried, too, mostly because I was so mad at myself. If I wouldn’t have cheated with Rachel then none of this would have ever happened and I never would have needed to murder her.

  I can’t believe that I was so selfish.

  The winter lasted a lot longer than I thought it should have. It snowed all the time. Luckily all of the food that we had cut up didn’t spoil. We ate very little of it.

  Anytime either of us had to use the restroom, we both went. We didn’t go in separate restrooms, either.

  We became like peas in a pod again. It took a long time, but we overcame the depression of losing our friends. We had been so close to them.

  I told myself that my affair with Rachel had simply been a bad dream – like the zombies in the snow. It felt real, but it wasn’t. Telling myself that it was a dream was the only way I could convince myself that it never really happened.

  We never set foot back in the lobby.

  I never told Mindy about the affair.

  We made a new plan to go to the Gulf whenever it warmed up.

  BOOK TWO: THE LOSS

  RECOVERY

  Donna Mattingsly struggled to get to her feet. Her legs and back were numb and asleep. She had been lying on the ground under a parked van for a very long time.

  She finally was able to stand. Steadying herself against the van, she brushed the dirt off of her legs and shirt. She brushed back her long red curly hair with her dirty hands.

  A very large group of undead had just passed by.

  She didn’t know how long she had been under the van. It seemed like hours.

  Her husband and 5 year old son hadn’t made it under the van in time. They had been caught and consumed by the undead. Their bodies were now lying in the middle of the road, gored. Her son’s right arm was propped upward like he was still trying to fend off the undead even in death. The rest of his body was unrecognizable.

  Donna stood looking down at them. She had no more tears to weep for them. She had cried so much. Losing her mother, her father, all of her friends. Losing people they had met on the road as they traveled away from Salt Lake City to Omaha.

  Rumors were that the military had a secure base in Omaha. She hoped that the military there was trustworthy; she heard that they had the whole base barricaded. That’s where she and Steve were going. Steve her husband and Alex, her son.

  “Not anymore, guys,” she whispered to their corpses. “It’s just me now.”

  She blinked away a tear which was fighting to get out of her eye.

  Wind blew around her feet. The highway was cluttered with hundreds of vehicles.

  She was standing on the side of I-80 four miles west of York, Nebraska.

  Suddenly she was tackled from behind. It was a rough jar that cricked her neck.

  “Get down!” some voice told her. “There’s more coming!”

  “Fuck,” she whispered. She quickly crawled back under the same van she had been under before.

  She looked around to see who had tackled her, but there wasn’t anyone around. All of the crashed cars around her only had daylight under them.

  Where did they go? Donna wondered.

  She heard slithering footsteps. She quietly lay there again as another unending parade of undead slowly marched past.

  Mindy and I left Billings the following May. Snow was still piled up on the grass in the city. The roads had become slushy and passable.

  We drove through the slush toward Cheyenne. We avoided Denver - and the looming thoughts of Skin - by heading instead east on I-80 from Cheyenne. The wind was cold against our bare faces as we rode our motorcycle. We were bundled up in several layers of coats. The weather warmed up as we made our way out of the Rocky Mountains down into the rolling foothills of western Nebraska.

  We didn’t see any people. There weren’t any zombies, either.

  We ate very little. We rationed all of our food. We had Ziploc sealed bags in a small cooler full of cut up meat tied down on the back of our motorcycle. We also had a 24 pack of bottled water that we slowly sipped from.

  We stayed at a Super 8 on the east side of Kimball, Nebraska. The second night we stayed there, Mindy was in the mood for some love. During the middle of making love, she whispered “I love you Dan.”

  “I love you too, Rach…”

  “What?” She stopped.

  “I love you too, Mindy.”

  She climbed out from under me. “You said Rachel,” she said, wide-eyed. She grabbed part of the bed sheet. She held it in front of her as she stood naked by the side of the bed.

  I rolled onto my back, sighing. “I said Mindy.”

  “You’ve never said Rachel like that before!”

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. I honestly had been thinking about Rachel.

  Mindy sat on the side of the bed, her back to me. “Rachel’s dead.”

  “I know.”

  “Were you thinking about her or a different Rachel you knew?”

  “Does it matter?” I asked. “They’re all dead now anyway.”

  “Yes it matters,” Mindy said, quickly looking over her shoulder at me. “It matters a hell of a lot!”

  “It was a different Rachel,” I said, lying. “It was a girl I knew in Seattle.”

  “Don’t I satisfy you any more, Dan?”

  “Oh God, yes,” I said, sitting up on an elbow. “You are the best I ever had.” Again, a lie.

  She smiled turning toward me. “You’re the best I ever had, too.”

  I pulled her toward me. She put her head on my chest. I said “I’m sorry. My mind was just wandering.”

  “You’re tired,” she said. “We’ve been on the road a long time. Let’s take a couple more days break here.”

  “Ok.” I said.

  I didn’t sleep for a long time. My mind kept playing Rachel over and over. I kept seeing her red curly hair bouncing. I kept seeing her tits bouncing. I kept feeling her sucking my cock and I kept thinking about how we fucked like animals on the couch of the hotel.

  And I kept beating myself up for murdering her.

  It was the humane thing to do I told myself.

  I needed to stop thinking about her.

  She was dead.

  She was gone.

  Enough.

  Back up the highway, we looted through a Dairy Queen. There wasn’t anything other than dried melted ice cream in the bottoms of all the coolers. All of the other food had gone bad. The walk-in cooler near the back of the store had been jimmied open long ago. There wasn’t anything inside that we would dare eat.

  The rest of the shops on the highway didn’t bring any goodies, either. We stared at a hanging calendar behind a cashier in one shop. The month on the calendar was August.

  This nightmare had been going on for almost a year.

  We stayed again that night in a different room in the Super 8. Mindy and I made love, and even though I was thinking of Rachel the whole time, I dared not say her name.

  This became our routine. We would travel a few days, take a break for a day or two, and then move on. The world around us w
as dead. We didn’t see a single soul or find a morsel of food we could eat. We made love every other night, and every other night I would bite my tongue when I said “I love you, Mindy” hoping beyond hope that Rachel wouldn’t slip out by mistake.

  It was almost like Rachel was haunting my mind.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about her!

  Thanks for the knife in the back of the head, Dan, I heard her saying. Nothing like getting stabbed in the back by the man who I thought cared for me. Do you do that to all the girls you love? Is Mindy next? Are you going to stab her in the back of the head after you fuck her, too?

  SHUT UP! I screamed at her in my mind.

  About 20 miles east of Grand Island, Nebraska we came across a major traffic jam. There were cars on both sides of the highway as far as the eye could see.

  “Wow,” Mindy muttered. “What happened here?”

  “Don’t know,” I said as I stopped the motorcycle. I shut it off.

  There was this sound…

  It was a huge crackling thunder. The sky was clear so it couldn’t have come from a thunderstorm. It was enormously loud. We looked around, trying to see anything anywhere, but we couldn’t see anything out of the norm.

  It was a deep earth shattering crackle. It almost sounded like the passing of a jet overhead, but it was deep with loud bass. When it cracked and popped it made our clothes ripple on our bodies.

  The passing of a jet? I thought. That sounds just like when the plane crashed in the mountains in Seattle…so long ago…could it be related?

  Then it was gone, echoing away over the flatlands.

  Mindy’s hands gripped my sides hard. “Dan,” she whispered. “Look!”

  “What is it?”

  “Zombies! Oh my God, thousands of them!”

  Down the hill ahead of us, the horizon was full of zombies. They weren’t simply on the highway, they were everywhere. On the sides of the road. In the fields. Everywhere.

  Quickly, I hopped off the motorcycle. I told Mindy to get in the stalled car next to us. There were no bodies in the car that I could see. Mindy jumped into the passenger seat. We made sure all of the windows were closed as we locked the doors.

  We slid down in the seats, covering ourselves the best we could with our coats.