by D C P Fox
“Get in, Jamie, hurry!”
Jamie eyed Marty suspiciously.
“Get in, son, quickly, before the others get up!” But they were already getting up and running toward Marty’s car. Jamie looked around at everything curiously . . . And then bared his teeth and moved toward Marty, his hands reaching into the window.
This broke Marty’s heart. This would not work if Jamie was determined to attack his father.
Marty sped away and stopped a ways up the street. Then he retrieved his shotgun, got out of the car, steadied, aimed, and fired successfully at the heads of Gerald and his family.
Those three dropped onto the road, but his son sped up toward him. He aimed for his son’s leg and fired. The boy cried out and collapsed.
Could there be something of Jamie in there, somehow?
“Jamie, I want you to get into the car. Can you do that for me?”
Jamie looked at him curiously as he stood up, his jeans and leg still bloody, but sufficiently healed. He bared his teeth, snarled, and lunged at his father.
The boy got very close and opened his mouth, going for his father’s neck. Marty instinctively hit Jamie with the barrel of his gun, deflecting Jamie enough to prevent the bite. Jamie’s momentum drove them both together onto the asphalt. The force of the impact made Marty release his grip on his shotgun, hearing it clank on the ground next to him.
They wrestled, and the smaller Jamie held his own. Not only was Zombie-Jamie a lot stronger than Normal-Jamie, but the sorrow of what had happened to his family diminished Marty’s will to fight.
Marty finally summoned the strength to throw Jamie to the ground and break free from the grappling. He spied his shotgun out of the corner of his eye. Keeping his eyes on his son, he retrieved it and dashed back to his car.
Clearly, he couldn’t capture his son, his only choice being to either kill him or leave him. As he hurried into his car, wasting precious moments instinctively reaching for the seatbelt, he realized his best option was to leave him. While still a zombie with his brain intact, Jamie had a chance, however slim. A cure had to be possible. Right?
As he sped away in his patrol car, now almost out of gas—fuck me—he realized that being able to find Jamie at some later date was a long shot. Leaving him wrenched his gut and would probably haunt him for the rest of his life.
Marty vowed to come back for his son.
Chapter Sixteen
Day Zero
Marty headed for the police station to look for survivors, but deep down he knew he would find none. For the next mile into town, Marty encountered no more zombies. They all seemed to have moved on up north. That meant Jamie would head north, too, shortly. He realized, despite his vow, that he had little hope of seeing his son again.
How could this terror have been unleashed? Was it just some kind of random virus? He doubted it. He hadn’t heard of anyone being sick at all. A tidal wave of zombies had swept through town with no warning. They had canvassed his neighborhood—most likely the entire town—in their efforts to infect everyone they could find. They didn’t seem intelligent, but there was definitely an intelligence to their actions.
What sort of diabolical scheme was this? Marty’s career in law enforcement trained him to see patterns in criminal behavior. Someone was behind this.
There were no survivors at the police station. There were no survivors anywhere.
His heart was heavy as he got back into his patrol car. He screamed and accelerated the vehicle on the sidewalk. All his anger, his frustration, his grief, was just too much for him. What kind of life was this?
He noticed the sign pole in his way and slammed on the brakes, the pulsing of the ABS massaging his right foot. Too late, he barreled into the police station’s intersection, and crashed head-on into a stalled SUV.
A rerun of Golden Girls was on the television. Vin thought it was a stupid show. After twenty minutes of trying to contact friends and loved ones but getting no results, he turned off Bea Arthur, gathered everyone together, and announced that it was time to start thinking about their own survival. “If we stick together, we’ve got a fighting chance. Alone, we don’t have much of one.”
He didn’t think they had much of a shot together, either, but he made sure he didn’t put it quite that way.
“Has anyone seen any zombies lately?” Vin asked. Everyone shook their heads. “Okay, I saw them all travel up north. Did anyone see them travel any different way?”
They all shook their heads. Piano-player spoke up. “We didn’t see them travel, but their footprints all went north, as far as we could tell.”
“Did anyone see them drive a car?”
They all shook their heads again.
“Good, then we’re probably safe for now, though they may come back at any time. If we do get some from the south, there isn’t much population between here and Bullhead City. Now, there’s an electronics store, and a sporting-goods store, which will probably have clothing, down the way in this strip mall. I want to go search for a radio, and bring us back some decent, clean clothes, but I don’t want to leave you undefended.”
“There’s a police station across the intersection,” Janice said.
“What of it?” Vin scowled.
“Has anyone seen a zombie with a weapon?” Janice looked around. “Anyone?”
Vin got it. “You think we might find weapons there.”
“Yes. We can all loot them of their weapons.”
“But what about the store?” Vin asked. “Who will defend the store? We need the food here if we are to survive.”
Alexander chimed in. “So, you will defend the store? With just one shotgun?”
Okay. Alexander had a point. “All right. I’ll go get us some weapons. You all should come with me; we need to stick together.”
“What about Emily?” Piano-player asked.
“You hold her hand and don’t let go.”
Emily spoke up. “I want to be with Charming.” She ran over to Vin and hugged his legs. Vin had to raise his arms to keep her from running into his shotgun.
This little girl will be a lot of trouble for me.
“He’ll protect me from the Wicked Queen.” Emily buried her face in his thigh.
Vin scowled. “There’s no Wicked Queen, little girl. Unless you’re referring to the president. And I ain’t no Prince Charming.”
“Don’t talk to her that way!” Janice protested. “Can’t you understand she’s been through an ordeal? She’s trying to cope with it as best she can.”
Oh, God, we don’t have time for this. “We’ve all been through an ordeal, sweetheart. We shouldn’t encourage this Snow White delusion.”
“She is coping,” piano-player said. “We need to let her do that in her own way.”
This is nonsense. “You play the piano, for Chrissakes. What do you know about little girls? Do you have a degree in psychology?”
“No. And neither do you.” Piano-player approached them and bent down on one knee, his eye level close to Emily’s. “Emily.” He reached out and gently touched her hand. “Prince Charming needs to protect all of us, and he needs both hands to do that. Take my hand and I promise I won’t let go, and we’ll stay close to Prince Charming. Can you do that?”
Emily scrunched her face, shook her head, and stomped her feet. “No!”
“Just yank her away from me, piano-player. We need to get to those weapons before someone else does.”
Piano-player looked him in the face. There was a determination and self-assuredness that impressed Vin. He was more than just a piano player. He had a name. What was it? Oh, right. Jize.
“No. We must reason with her. She will never go along if we antagonize her.” Jize looked back at Emily, who was clinging hard onto Vin. “Emily, I need you to listen.” His voice was firm. While Vin didn’t agree with Jize’s method, he had to agree the man had conviction. And his diction was very good for an Asian. “Prince Charming needs to protect all of us,” he repeated. “He can’t do
that while you cling onto him. You must be brave. Snow White is brave, right?”
She nodded.
“Can you be brave, Snow White? I promise not to let Prince Charming out of our sight. Now, you promised me you would stay with me or Janice at all times, remember?”
She nodded again. “But Charming will stay with us?”
Okay, may as well play along. “I’ll make sure I protect you, Snow White, I promise.” Emily looked up at him with wide eyes. “I promise,” Vin repeated. I’m going to regret this, I just know it.
They walked disorderly together behind Vin. Vin kept his shotgun raised, ready to shoot, and turned around constantly, pivoting while walking. Janice thought it comical but suppressed a laugh. No one would appreciate a laugh right about now.
Because here they were, their lives turned upside down and ruined, just over the last—she checked her watch: 2:15—two hours or so. Vin took for granted that they all wanted to survive. Janice thought the point debatable. Nonetheless, they all agreed to loot the police for their weapons. Janice alone had no one to mourn. That meant she had no misguided hope. She wouldn’t dream, though, of dashing these people’s hope, little though it may be.
But Vin was right. They needed to survive. They deserved to cling somehow to the hope that they could have a normal life. A cure, a reversal, was possible, although her nurse’s training informed her otherwise. The chances of there being a cure soon after the first outbreak hovered around zero. If Atlanta, home of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), had gone dark, there was little hope, at least in America.
She wondered what was going on in China right now. In the wee hours of the dark morning. Had this zombie wave hit there, yet? The crawl on the TV said, “Zombie Apocalypse Sweeps World,” or something to that effect. It definitely said “World,” though the anchor said nothing about outside America. Or did he? It was only an hour or so ago, but she found it difficult to remember.
Everyone looked so haggard: only Janice wasn’t bloody with clothes ruined. At least Janice and Jize had managed to keep their eyeglasses blood-free and unbroken. How long would that last?
They did however have blood splatters on their shoes; even Janice’s shoes were bloody. Maybe they all should get a new pair.
All of this was on her mind as they passed by the crashed Beaver County Sheriff patrol car.
Nothing special there.
Pools of blood scattered around the police station. A great slaughter had occurred here—a battle the zombies apparently won, as there were no bodies in sight. Handguns were strewn throughout the intersection. The police had put up a barricade of patrol cars surrounding the station, but to little effect. One crashed patrol car stood apart from the others.
Jize’s instinct was to protect his hands, plus, he’d promised to keep one hand holding Emily’s, so that left one hand to pick up a gun and put it in his pocket. He wanted to find a clean one. But he also wanted to check for ammo, and he couldn’t do that while holding on to Emily.
As luck would have it, he found one. He and Emily waded through some puddles of blood behind the barricade, and he picked up a handgun. He grabbed it by the handle, keeping his hand away from the trigger as much as possible.
“Let’s see if we can find someone who can help us figure out if this one is loaded.” Jize was talking more to himself than to Emily. He scanned the scene with his eyes. “It looks like we’ll have to wait. Everyone is occupied.”
“Maybe the man in the sheriff’s car can help?”
Jize looked around again. She must mean Alexander. She would have called Vin Charming. “Mr. Williams is not in a sheriff’s car.”
“Not him.” Emily pointed at the crashed car. “Him.”
Jize narrowed his eyes. All he could make out was a deployed airbag, but now that he looked carefully, there might be a body in there after all.
Chapter Seventeen
Day Seven
Jocelyn had looted the shoulder shotgun holster from Aaron’s body and tied her scabbard with her scabbard belt on the opposite side. Wearing it with the sword and shotgun firmly in place, she put her backpack on over them. It was awkward, but she verified that she could draw her weapons with it on.
She walked up the mountain toward her car, and soon her back was sweaty. In the strong sunlight, she judged the temperature to be around sixty degrees. The whole idea of a zombie apocalypse, if real (she had serious doubts now about what was real and what wasn’t given her present condition), had begun to sink in. Gone was any semblance of a normal life. She became sick to her stomach at the prospect of having to face zombies, or draugar, and kill them. An overall sense of dread permeated every fiber of her being.
She was drained, anxious, and frightened.
When she reached the cabin, still hot and sweaty, she took off George’s baggy clothes and put on blue jeans and a plain white t-shirt covered with a gray UCSD sweatshirt. Though dirty, they at least fit and had no bloodstains on them.
She picked up a key fob off a nail on the wall and walked out to her car—a rental hybrid she had filled with gas in Beaver Park, the nearby ski resort town. She clicked the fob to unlock the doors, expecting a beep.
Silence.
She tried again. Silence once more.
Over and over, she hit all the buttons on the fob several times. Nothing.
She tried the doors, but they were locked.
Fearing the worst, she extracted a physical key from the fob and attempted to unlock the door with it. It opened. She got behind the wheel but did not get the little greeting sound she expected.
Then she put her foot on the brake and hit the start button.
Nothing.
She hit the start button several times, but nothing happened. She tried various buttons, but none of them responded.
The battery was dead.
And AAA was not an option.
Shit.
If you were a girl with a clinical mental illness in the middle of nowhere without medication or a vehicle, where would you go?
The best path to Colorado Springs lay to the south, but to the north was Beaver Park, only ten miles away and big enough to likely have a pharmacy. She got out her road atlas, and none of the towns to the south were as big in font size (the bigger the font, the larger the population). In fact, the closest cities larger than Beaver Park were Colorado Springs and Denver. If she walked to either city, it might take a week or longer. And maybe she could find a car in Beaver Park? The more she thought about it, the more sense it made to go north to Beaver Park, before heading to Denver or Colorado Springs.
So north to Beaver Park it was. She carried everything, including her whetstone, plus the road atlas, back down the mountain.
Once back at George’s house, everything there looked useful to Jocelyn, yet she could only bring either what could fit in or be fastened onto George’s large and sturdy backpack. So, she prioritized often useful things like food. But she also brought items that, when needed, would be extremely necessary, like a first-aid kit and a compass. No matter how much thought she put into what to bring, something she left behind would be useful at some point. But there wasn’t much she could do about that.
Too wound up to sleep that night, she took out her whetstone, sat on the couch, and sharpened her double-edged sword, the first time she had done that since her grandfather had shown her how. She hoped the task would help distract her mind from her troubles.
Not only did she have feelings of guilt to deal with, but what lay ahead terrified her. Would she even be able to survive draugar attacks until she got to Colorado Springs? At least she didn’t face the prospect of becoming infected like George.
She missed her boyfriend, but not as much as she expected under the circumstances. A zombie apocalypse must have a way of ending relationships. If it was as pervasive as Saint Michael had stated, if it wasn’t all in her mind, then her boyfriend was most likely infected or dead. She felt depressed just thinking about it, but she had to admit to her
self that she didn’t really miss him. She thought the lack of his companionship would have been difficult to deal with on her vigil, but it hadn’t been.
What she needed then, and what she desperately needed now, was a companion, any companion, someone to share this horrifying experience with. She didn’t wish this experience on anyone, but someone out there must be going through hell. She wanted someone, anyone she could rely on to help her get through this.
Her eyes teared as she thought about how her grandfather would have fulfilled that role well. It was a great mercy he died without having to deal with an apocalypse.
And then there was his daughter, her mother. Although Jocelyn didn’t share the special bond with her that she had shared with her grandfather, Jocelyn loved her mother for giving her the comfort and support she needed. Her mother would never tolerate Jocelyn blaming herself for her father’s abandoning his family. “Betrayal” was the word she used to describe what he had done.
His new wife was younger than Jocelyn.
Jocelyn hoped this disease hadn’t spread as much as Saint Michael implied. But she knew there was a likelihood that her mother too was probably a draugar or dead. Jocelyn screamed and threw her whetstone across George’s living room, denting and cracking the plaster wall.
Jocelyn awoke in a daze. She didn’t remember falling asleep.
Where was she?
Right. George’s house. The couch. The blood.
She must have fallen asleep with her sword in her lap. She breathed heavily a few times, orienting herself in the present.
A horrifying present, but the present, nonetheless.
The light was dim. She got up and stood her sword up against the couch, retrieved her whetstone from across the room and placed it where she had slept. She shambled into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face in a grimy sink.
In the mirror above the sink, her reflection stared back at her grimly. She appeared old. Bags under her eyes, creases at the corners of her mouth—she looked more like her mother than herself.
