Sarah was standing on the sidewalk, suitcases in her hands and duffle bags slung over her shoulders, staring up the road in disbelief. She’d just finished packing the essentials expecting to stuff them into the trunk of her beat up Chevy, but when she got to the curb, her Chevy was gone. So were her husband, Max, and their cat, Sylvester.
She knew she should be angry, enraged even, but after the night they’d had, disbelief was all she could muster.
Sarah let the duffles slide off her shoulders, stood one of the suitcases on its end, and sat down. Suddenly, the “essentials” didn’t seem all that essential.
Her world was very quiet. With the power cut, not even the constant hum of the electric wires was filling up the void where society had been just the day before. It was unnerving. After the nightmare she and Max had survived, she’d expected explosions, fires, first responders everywhere, other survivors—but there was nothing. Just a bunch of busted up suburban prefabs, a few dead bodies, and an overwhelming silence.
“Hello?” Sarah said, just barely above a whisper. She waited a beat before yelling, “Hello? Is anyone here?”
Nothing.
Sarah sighed and stood up. She knew she couldn’t stay there. Her house wasn’t defensible by one person—at least, not without a lot of repairs—and who knew if those things would be back? The monsters had torn through walls, smashed out all the windows, busted down a couple doors. Sarah found herself glad she and Max had decided not to buy for a couple more years. She had no idea how they would have paid for the repairs when this thing was over.
“What is that noise?” Sarah asked the ravished neighborhood.
At some point, a low grumble had started in the east. She didn’t know how long she’d been sitting there, or when the noise started. But it was getting closer.
Sarah stared down the road in the direction from which it was coming. She briefly considered hiding, but decided against it. If it was someone with a car, maybe they’d get her the fuck out of there. If it was those things again, maybe they’d kill her, and she could stop freaking out about the fact that Max had just left her there without any escape.
While she watched, a pickup turned on to her street a few blocks up the road. Sarah breathed a sigh of relief and stood up. She whipped off her white hoodie, and started waving it in the air.
“Hey! Hey, over here! Hey!”
The truck slid to a stop in front of her, and the window rolled down.
“S…Sarah? Sarah, is that really you? I mean, I’d hoped I’d find you, but I don’t think I really believed I would.”
Sarah froze.
“No way.” she said. “No fucking way. NO FUCKING WAY.”
Her hands began to tremble. She clenched them into fists and chewed the inside of her cheek to stop the wave of nausea that washed over her when she heard the man’s voice. It was like she’d hit the first peak of a roller coaster, and was in free fall, barely restrained by her tenuous grasp on reality and the flimsy straps on the tank top she was wearing.
She didn’t have to look into those crystal blue eyes to know it was him. She could feel the slime ooze from his tongue and try to enclose her in its sticky embrace; smell the stench of the lies he’d told, and would tell, to put her squarely under his thumb.
Sarah took a few deep breaths as her cheeks began to burn. She felt utterly ridiculous and a little stupid for allowing this man to see how he affected her. She began chiding herself for giving him even this much control over her again. Her pulse began to slow, and the nausea faded. When she felt herself regaining control, she opened her eyes and glared at the man ducking down in the driver’s seat.
“What’re you doing here, Jimmy?” Sarah asked, her voice surprisingly steady.
“Saving you. You wanna argue, or you wanna find somewhere safe to hole up for the night? Get in.”
Sarah looked around. Death and destruction were everywhere. She had no idea if anyone had survived. She had no way out. The little house she shared with her husband had been reduced to rubble. Her gaze found its way back to the man in the truck.
“I don’t know, Jimmy. Maybe I’m safer with the monsters.”
Jimmy sighed. “Sarah, I won’t touch you. I’m clean. Haven’t even had a drink in over a year. Not even since this…thing started. I don’t have any weapons. You can search the whole truck, if you want, just be quick about it. I saw some of those things a couple turns back. They’re moving pretty slowly, but they’ll be here soon. And when they get here, all those dead bodies? Well, they won’t be dead for long.”
“W-what do you mean?” Sarah stammered. She silently cursed herself for showing this man her fear.
“They come back to life. Only they’re more like those things than they are like us. A little smarter. A little faster. But something’s missing. Are you gonna get in the truck, or what?”
“They killed my neighbors and changed my cat. I don’t know where they went.”
“Changed your cat?”
“Yeah. I don’t know. Tom fought one of them, and he started acting weird. He’s in the house. I couldn’t bring myself to kill him.”
Sarah looked at Jimmy for what was probably way too long, weighing her options. She produced a pistol from behind her back, flicked the safety off, and aimed the gun up the street. Then she made a big show of checking the clip and loading the chamber.
“Doesn’t matter if you have weapons. I have my own, this time. I always was a better shot than you.” She dropped her arms to her sides, and faced Jimmy again, her gaze unflinching as she found the courage she’d always wished she had. “Get this stuff in the truck, and I’ll go grab a couple shotguns and some more ammo. ”
Jimmy climbed out of the truck. “Okay. Hurry.”
———————
Sarah climbed the front steps to her house, and took a second to prepare herself. She hadn’t seen any of those things for hours, but there was no telling what was inside.
She fished under her bed for the gun cases. Quickly, she changed the combinations on each to Tom’s birthday because it was a number Jimmy couldn’t guess. She checked to be sure the guns were there, and that they were loaded. Then she went to the closet where she had spent the night with Max and Sylvester to stuff as much ammo as she could into a couple lock boxes. Sarah changed those combinations, too, using the day she picked Sylvester up at the shelter this time.
Sarah slipped the straps on the gun cases over her head, grabbed a lock box in each hand, and headed toward the last place she’d seen her cat.
Tom hadn’t moved from where she’d found him that morning. For the first few hours after he bit that thing, he’d made this bizarre noise she’d never heard come from a cat before…and then he just stopped. The only reason she could tell he was still alive, if you could call it that, was the twitch in his tail; an odd, jerking movement that reminded her of stop motion films. At first, she thought it was just muscle spasms, but it was now approaching twenty-four hours later, and he was still doing it.
“Here, kitty,” she whispered as she approached the animal. “Here, Tom. Pretty boy. Come to mama.”
Tom didn’t react. He didn’t look up. His ears didn’t twitch. He just crouched there, in that impossible position, twitching his tail.
Sarah reached out to the animal, wanting to pet him one last time. When her hand got within scratching distance, Tom lashed out viciously, all teeth and claws. Sarah snatched her hand away just in time, and the cat resumed his position.
Tom started making that noise again.
“Uh, Sarah?” Jimmy said, just barely loud enough for Sarah to hear him. “I don’t mean to rush you, but I see some movement back the way I came. Can we hurry th
is along?”
“Give me a minute, Jimmy.”
Sarah stood up and looked down at her old friend. Tears streamed down her cheeks as she lifted the pistol. She aimed the gun, closed her eyes, and squeezed the trigger.
“Goodbye, Tom. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you.”
Sarah shoved the tears off her face and ran out the front door.
“Gotta move, Sarah,” Jimmy quaked, as Sarah ran down the front steps.
Sarah looked down the road. There was a crowd shuffling toward them just a couple blocks away.
“Holy shit, Jimmy, why didn’t you tell me they were that close?”
“Jesus, Sarah, will you move your ass? Or are you playing the role of the dumb blonde in this horror flick?”
“I’m leaving with you, aren’t I?” Sarah growled as she loaded the guns and ammo in the backseat of the cab.
Jimmy opened his mouth to reply.
Sarah cut him off with a wave of her free hand. “Shut the fuck up, Jimmy. I’m pretty sure your character doesn’t have any lines in this scene.”
Jimmy chuckled as Sarah swung herself up into the seat and slammed the door. “Yep. Still the same old Sarah.”
———————
Jimmy drove the rest of the day while Sarah gave him directions without telling him where they were going. They didn’t talk much, though Jimmy seemed to have lots he wanted to say.
Sarah saw the sign for New York City and sighed. In six hours, they’d managed to travel about one hundred fifty miles from Sarah’s house in Schenectady, thanks to the abandoned traffic jams on all the major roads and highways.
“Wow, this is gonna be a long trip,” Sarah remarked when she pointed out the exit.
As it started to get dark, Jimmy asked, “Wanna take over the driving for a while? I’m getting tired. I’ve been up all night. Don’t want to have survived that drama just to end up killing us in a car crash.”
Sarah shook her head. “I can’t drive.”
“Sure you can. You’ve always been a really good driver.”
“You kidding? I wrecked my car three times before I was 18. I’ve always been a very shitty driver.” Sarah narrowed her eyes and continued. “Besides, my license expired when I was with you, and you wouldn’t give me money for a new one. Since you also wouldn’t let me get a job, and I hate driving anyway, I never renewed it. After we split, people were always more than happy to drive me around. I never had to drive, so I didn’t.”
“So what? It’s not rocket science. It’s just like riding a bicycle.”
Sarah laughed. “It is so not like riding a bicycle.”
After a few minutes had passed, Jimmy said, “Men, I bet.”
“What?”
“You said people were ‘more than happy’ to drive you around. I bet men were more than happy to drive you around.”
“Are you calling me a slut?”
“No, I’m calling you hot. I’d drive you around whenever you wanted, too.”
“Really? Then how come you wouldn’t when we were married?”
Jimmy looked like Sarah had slapped him. Sarah looked out the passenger window. Neither of them spoke again for at least half an hour.
It was Jimmy who broke the silence.
“Okay, if you’re not gonna drive, where are we stopping for the night? We can’t sleep in the truck. It’s not safe.”
“We’ve got about an hour left of sunlight. We’re just about twenty minutes from my sister’s place. Her husband’s a Marine Corps vet. I bet they survived this craziness. We’ll stop there.”
Jimmy chewed the inside of his cheek. He only did that when he was trying not to say something.
“What?” Sarah snapped.
“It’s just…your sister doesn’t like me much, and I’m pretty sure…in fact, I’m certain that the last time I spoke to Khalid, he told me that if he ever even so much as smelled me thinking about coming near his family, he’d hunt me down and put a bullet between my eyes.”
“Khalid’s just protective of his little sister-in-law. He wouldn’t actually kill you. Anyway, suck it up, buttercup. Unless you’ve got a better idea.”
“Let’s find a hotel.”
“Are you kidding? Do you know how many people are in a hotel at any given time? The monsters wouldn’t have to kill us. The smell alone would be enough.”
“Maybe there’s one that was evacuated before zombies took over the US.”
“Oh, right. You didn’t hear.” Sarah’s voice took on a gentler tone. “It’s not just the US anymore.”
“Huh?”
“When you were in the bathroom a few stops back, the radio said London, Dubai, and Tokyo are overrun. There have been sightings in Marrakech and Sydney. It’ll only be a matter of time before the whole world looks like the US. One more thing to blame us for.”
“Who even knows how this started, huh?” Jimmy spouted, sounding defensive. “Maybe it was a terrorist attack, like 9-11. Maybe it’s ISIS.”
Sarah stared at Jimmy as if he’d sprouted a third head.
“Hey, it could happen!”
“I guess. Anyway, my sister’s house is the best option. They’ll have food, and solar energy, and at the very least, bottled water. Though knowing Khalid, they’ll have safe running water, too.”
“Yeah, he always was a bit of a Boy Scout, huh?”
“Actually, I’m pretty sure he was a Boy Scout. But in his more recent past, he was a Marine in Iraq. Right about now, I’m more interested in the experience he gained on that adventure.”
Jimmy grunted.
“You’re really scared, huh?”
Always the man’s man, Jimmy pretended he didn’t hear Sarah’s question.
“Tell ya what. If Khalid’s a dick, we’ll leave.”
“What if he shoots on sight? Aren’t those crazy motherfuckers trained to shoot to kill?”
“Their enemies, not their sister-in-law,” Sarah retorted, too tired to scold Jimmy for categorizing her brother-in-law as a ‘crazy motherfucker.’
“I’m not his sister-in-law.”
The sun was just barely visible over the horizon as they pulled into the driveway. Sarah cursed under her breath when she saw that the garage door was open and both cars were gone. The windows were boarded up, and one of the solar panels on the roof was smashed, but otherwise, the house looked in good condition.
“Damn it. Damn it, damn it, damn it. Where the fuck could they have gone? And why’d they leave the garage open?”
Sarah flung open the truck door and hopped out, pulling the pistol from her waistband. “I’m gonna have a look around.”
“What’s the point? They’re gone!”
“I don’t know, Jimmy. You’re the one who called Khalid a boy scout. Maybe they left some supplies behind.”
“Maybe they’re all zombies and somebody stole their cars.”
Sarah kicked the door shut and started up the drive toward the garage. She didn’t bother responding. Jimmy sighed and hurried after her.
The garage was mostly empty. Khalid was adamant about garages being for cars, so very little was stored there. They’d left behind a car battery charger, a giant box of tools reserved for the cars, and…
“Hey, they still have the Ferrari I bought for Maddy! What’s she, sixteen, now?”
“Yeah. It’s a collector’s edition. Plus, it’s really a kid-sized Ferrari. They’d be crazy to sell it. It’s worth a ton of money. It’ll be worth even more some day, if we come back from all this. I’m surprised it’s still here. Where the hell did you get that kind of money?”
“You know.”
“Yeah. I just want to hear you say it.”
“Running errands.”
“What kind of ‘errands,’ Jimmy?”
Jimmy shot Sarah a look that could have cut glass.
“You want upstairs or down?” he asked, ignoring her question.
“This place doesn’t exactly work like that. It’s kind of a maze. We should probably stick togeth
er. And we should definitely start in the basement. That’s where Khalid keeps the things he stockpiles for emergencies.”
“Emergencies. You mean like the zombie apocalypse?”
“Yeah, Jimmy,” Sarah rolled her eyes. “Like the zombie apocalypse.”
Sarah jiggled the knob on the door leading into the home. It was locked.
“I don’t have a key. But I know where there is one. Come on.”
“Why don’t we just kick in the door?”
“Because if we’re going to stay here for the night, we need a fully functional door?”
It All Comes Down To Zombies: Sarah Page 1
