by Dean James
“I understand. But you still should have told me. I know it sounds stupid, but I think I would have taken it better from you,” I said. I made a poor attempt to put my arm around her, but my shoulder screamed for mercy when I tried. With all the day’s events, I had strained it too much and I was paying for it. It’s funny how a gunshot wound can heal and be only slightly tender after a relatively short time. But you tweak a major joint like a shoulder, and you’re paying for it for years.
“It wouldn’t have changed anything if I did. You would have just stayed in bed stewing over it. I wanted to keep the bad away from you as long as I could. You can’t hold that against me.”
“Yes I can.” She looked up at me questioningly. “But I won’t. I probably would have done the same.” She closed her eyes and snuggled close.
We sat together for a long while. We didn’t say much of anything to each other. We just held each other, and took comfort in our closeness. Even the bone chilling cold had lost its effect on me while she was there. Eventually she sat in front of me, leaning back with her head on my chest. We rocked back and forth while she hummed “In My Life” from the Beatles. It was our first dance song, and always seemed to pop up at important moments in our lives.
“Want some coffee?” she asked after a while.
“You read my mind. I think I’m done out here. I’ve had enough excitement for one day,” I said, stretching as I stood. Joints creaked and cracked as I did.
“You’re getting old.” She smiled at me as she stretched. Her knees cracked, and she shot me a look that told me I had better not say a word.
“I’m going to finish up and come in. I want to make sure what I’ve sorted out stays that way,” I said, grabbing a bundle of cables and tying them into a loose knot.
“I’m going in. I’ll keep the coffee hot for you.” She picked up her shotgun, slinging it over her shoulder. She winked at me over her shoulder before walking off the bus. I wasn’t sure if it bothered me that she looked so natural walking around with a shotgun strapped to her, or if it was the sexiest damn thing I had ever seen. Regardless of the reason, I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
And she knew it, too.
She looked back at me as she took the first step out of the vehicle, running her fingernails slowly across the silvery hand rails. Her hips swayed as she walked. She stepped off the bus, licking her lips at me as she disappeared into the gloomy barn.
“Bye…” her sultry voice carried in the silence.
“Hey, Abby?”
“Yeah?” she poked her head back inside.
“I love you.”
“I bet you say that to all the heavily armed women in your life,” she joked.
“Not if I want to live I don’t!”
“Good answer! You’ve been practicing!”
“I thought it was a good time to brush up on my female communication etiquette, especially since every woman I know is heavily armed now,” I laughed.
“Well, if you hurry there might be something else you can practice when you get back inside.” She winked at me again.
“It better not be sewing. I hate sewing,” I joked.
“You can never be serious, can you?” she sighed with a smile.
“Never. And you love me for it.”
“Almost always,” she said as she disappeared again.
There are moments in a person’s life that are forever etched in the recesses of their mind. Every aspect of those seconds are recorded, locked away in memory until that person is dead and buried. Happy times, like the day you marry or when your child takes her first steps. Tragic times like when the Twin Towers fell, or when you get the phone call in the middle of the night that your father has passed away. Every sound, every smell, every individual thought is recorded and stored away into the mental hard drive.
Abby’s scream will forever live in my nightmares.
Chapter Forty-One
Mark leaned against the wall, staring out the window at the bleak countryside. He thought again about heading out to the hallway window for another smoke. He was not used to the lack of conversation. He had grown accustomed to chatting with Dan while he recovered. Now nothing but silence accompanied him on his long watches.
His mind wandered back to his family. They lived in the middle of the city, where one of the largest outbreaks had occurred. His attempts to contact them had been futile. He mourned for them when he could do it privately.
He found himself mourning a lot.
He questioned his reason for making the trip to the farm in the first place. He had already resigned himself to his fate when he climbed out on his roof. The house was surrounded, and no one was coming for him. He gathered every beer he had and planned to drink until he was numb. By the time he passed out and rolled off his roof into the hands of the awaiting dead, he would be too drunk to care.
He was only four beers in when he saw Matt plowing his way towards his house. He didn’t even know why he chose to leap onto the bus roof. He had already made his peace with a dying world. Maybe it was loyalty to his friend, he thought. He did drive all the way there to pick him up after all. It could have even been his own personal desire to know what happened next in his own story. Whatever the reason, he left his home to begin a life of survival.
Shouldering his rifle, he took another quick look across the snowy plains before heading towards the hallway window. He would grab another pack of smokes on his next supply run. As much as he hated them, the cigarettes calmed his frayed nerves. He didn’t want to leave his post, but Chris wouldn’t tolerate smoking anywhere near his bedroom.
“Another one?” Lexi called out from the bedroom across from his. “You know those things stink up the house, right?” He poked his head in, finding her sitting by the open window overlooking the back fields.
“Not as bad as you do after canned chili!” he shot back before retreating.
He started pulling the last cigarette from the pack, smiling as insults only a teenager could come up with were hurled at him. A flick of the thumb opened his father’s old Zippo lighter. Sparks flew as he tried to light it, with no success. He flicked the wheel two more times before smelling the wick. The scent of lighter fluid was noticeably absent.
“What the fu…”
The hallway window exploded inwards, the upper corner of its frame splintering as Mark received a shower of broken glass. Tiny cuts on his exposed skin bled instantly. Carefully he poked his head outside, catching Abby and Adam fighting over possession of her shotgun. He drove his heel into her knee, snapping it backwards. She screamed and fell to the snow howling. Adam leveled the shotgun at her head.
“Put it down!” Mark yelled. He took aim at Adam’s head. “I won’t say it twice!”
Adam just smiled back at him and shrugged. Mark’s finger began to draw back on the trigger when Adam pointed towards the barn. Mark chanced a quick glance, and gasped. He looked back to find Adam was nowhere to be seen.
“Zeds!”
**********
Chris and Joe stared at each other, their conversation cut mid sentence. Even in the cellar the boom resonated off the walls. They were already on the move when they heard Abby’s scream. They fell over the canned food they had been inventorying as they scrambled towards the large gun safe recessed into the stone wall.
“Joe! Those things are outside!” Rosa yelled from the top of the stairs.
“How many?!” Chris called up.
“A lot!” she cried. “Abby’s out there!”
“Get the kids upstairs and barricade the doors!” he ordered.
Joe was at the top of the stairs before Chris could blink. Chris scooped up the closest weapon to him, a Saiga semi automatic shotgun with a drum magazine. He took the stairs two at a time, slipping as he cut the corner at the top. It only took him a couple seconds to get to the front door and throw open a window to add to the ever growing barrage.
He wasn’t fast enough.
**********
Matt had j
ust started drifting off when the shattering glass had him shooting out of bed. He was lacing his boots when he heard Mark calling out. He had the AR-15 Chris had given him in hand before Mark shouted his alert. He was jogging from the back bedroom when Lexi’s rifle suddenly barked.
He quickened his pace, almost running headlong into Anna as she and Rosa crested the stairs, kids in tow. Jane held Anna’s neck tight until it looked as if her head would separate from her body. Rosa corralled Faith and Katie in front of her, both covering their ears and wailing.
“Uncle Matt!” Katie cried. “I want my mommy! Where’s my mommy?!”
He kneeled down, wiping her tears from her cheek. “Don’t worry kiddo. We’re going to find your mommy and daddy. Go with Miss Rosa, she’ll take care of you. Okay squirt?”
“Okay,” she said, her lip quivering.
He launched himself into a run. The floors vibrated as Joe’s weapon joined the fray on the floor below. The house filled with the acrid scent of spent gunpowder. Empty brass clanged on the hardwood floor as Mark emptied his magazine, slamming another one home as Matt arrived. Lexi swore under her breath, rhythmically pumping the bolt action between each shot.
He took a knee at the destroyed window, glass shards digging through his thick denim jeans and into his skin. Mark glanced at him without a word as Matt’s rifle joined the assault.
**********
I ran.
My tenuous grip on my hammer was nearly lost as I scooped it up from the driver’s seat. I was so numb with fear that I did not feel the pain in my still healing knee when I leapt over the two steps onto the concrete floor. There was something in her scream that was different, and it had me terrified.
Chris must have closed the bay doors when he left, because I found myself in almost complete darkness. I bolted towards the side door that let out towards the house, hoping I guessed the direction Abby had gone. The florescent light escaping the bus offered just enough light to mostly avoid tripping over the myriad of obstacles littering the floor.
The crescendo of gunfire grew outside. Several holes appeared in the wall in front of me. Shafts of light penetrated the darkness like laser beams. Bullets ricocheted off the concrete floor and slammed into the side of the bus behind me. I lunged towards the door to escape the errant rounds before one of them put another new bullet hole in me.
I shoved the door, but it only opened five inches before rebounding in my face. Three sets of gnarled and diseased hands wrapped around the door’s edge. I grabbed the doorknob, pulling back against the things trying to gain entrance to no avail. Fingers caught in the frame would not allow me to close it again.
I gave up trying to pull it closed, and instead threw my weight against it. The top hinge cracked and gave way, leaving the door hanging wide open and completely useless. The creatures were caught off guard, the force of my charge knocking them over each other as they hit the ground in a mass. My forward momentum almost sent me tumbling over the mound of squirming dead before I regained my footing.
I drew my pistol and fired three shots at a range close enough that I couldn’t have missed if I tried. Three heads exploded in succession before they had a chance to recover.
Abby was attempting to drag herself towards the house, but her progress was almost nonexistent. Her right knee was bent backwards in an unnatural direction.
I sprinted to her without fully realizing the extent of the danger we were in. I holstered my pistol, transferring the hammer to my right hand so I could fight and carry her. I lifted her arm around my neck, and gingerly lifted her to her feet. She bit down on her lip, the pain written all over her face with every torturous move.
“Dan, look out!” Chris shouted from within the house.
I turned my head in time to see the top of a man’s head sheer off from one of Joe’s bullets. At least twenty of the things were in view. An impressive body count already lay on the ground unmoving. But the hellfire raining down from the house was not enough to stem the tide, as more of the abominations streamed from around the corner of the barn.
Even if I had not ripped the barn door from its hinges, a retreat back inside it had already been cut off as some of the undead already found their way inside. The thunderous noise coming from the house already drew too many of the things towards it as well. Chris had stopped shooting for fear of hitting us; instead he called out towards the creatures in an attempt to lure them away from us. At least a half dozen of them were already on the porch pounding away at the door, their numbers increasing by the minute.
Regardless of how many were lured away, there were still plenty of hungry eyes locked on us.
We were trapped outside with nowhere to run. Abby could barely move without her body tensing in pain, so in reality running at all was out of the question. She shook all over, sweat beading on her face. I prayed the adrenalin running through her veins was enough to keep her from going into shock and passing out before we could get to safety, if there was any safety to be found.
“Abby! Take my gun, I can’t shoot and carry you,” I shouted over the din.
She nodded. She reached across me, pulling the pistol from its holster. The things were no more than ten feet away, and looked like they had no intention of stopping for a coffee break. I gripped the hammer until my hand began to shake. There were so many at that point that I no longer noticed faces or ages. But for some reason, I remember clothes.
Abby fired, Walmart went down. A shot from above, Nightgown hit the dirt. My hammer flew, Naked took a face plant. (I hate the naked ones. Why are there so many naked ones? As if looking at their rotting, loose skin faces aren’t bad enough!) Abby pulled the trigger again, and Footie Pajamas met its final death. Chris, who had moved to a position he could shoot from again, fired his Saiga. Three of the things fell like bowling pins as shotgun pellets tore into their skulls.
“Dan!” Mark called down. “The ambulance! Get to the ambulance!”
Abby’s shot sent Tightey-Whities to his eternal dirt nap just as we started our hobbled journey to the carport. I didn’t know how much protection the box ambulance would provide, but it was better than nothing.
A hell of a lot better than nothing.
She hopped on her one good leg. She choked back the painful yelps, but her face twisted with the agony of every movement. Her cries could be heard over the crescendo of gunfire. Fat tear droplets scrambled down her red cheeks until they glistened.
Zombies appeared from around the other side of the barn. Our only hope of survival was suddenly threatened. Abby let two more bullets fly, Khakis and Polo did an impressive corkscrew on the way down. We had to pick up our pace, and Abby obliged. Her nails digging into my neck let me know how she felt about it through.
“Adam did this,” she spat through gritted teeth.
“We’ll deal with that later,” I huffed.
“He has my gun.” her voice sounded weak. I gripped her tighter and pulled her along. We were fifteen feet from the rig’s back door.
“Almost there,” I exhaled. “Almost there…almost there…almost there.” It became a chant, my mantra that pushed me and my precious cargo forward.
My hammer came up, and a sideways blow devastated the skull of Coveralls.
“Almost there.” Ten feet away.
Lexi’s rifle spoke. The bullet’s heat momentarily warmed the tip of my ear as it whizzed by. Reflective Orange Road Crew crumpled to the ground.
“Almost there.” Five feet away. I could almost feel the cold radiating from the vehicle’s metal skin. The red and white paint stood out like a beacon to me. My vision tunneled, the landscape went black and white, save for the gleaming red star of life on the back of the ambulance door.
I dropped the hammer to the ground. My fingers wrapped around the chilled metal handle on the patient loading door, and I threw open the back door. The stretcher had been removed the day we had arrived, leaving the patient compartment free of obstacles. Abby and I could hurl ourselves inside without worry of getti
ng tripped up on equipment. For a glimmering moment, there was hope that we would make it.
Hope sucks.
Abby’s muscles tensed and her body went rigid. Her fingernails clawed deeper into my neck sending blood trickling down my back. Our eyes met. The brown eyes that I had looked into for thirteen years were wide open with shock. There was confusion and pain, sorrow and fear swimming in them.
It’s funny, the things you notice before your brain will allow you to register the truth. It’s almost like looking at a large painting in a gallery. The brush strokes that come together with a mix of vibrant colors to form a bright blue sunny afternoon sky on canvas. The reds and greens meticulously blended and shaped to form a rose bush in the lower corner of the image. All the minute details that your eyes focus on before you take a step back and see the whole painting in all its horrifying glory.
I saw her beige jacket. It was the same coat that had protected her on the first night, cotton still hanging from the hole that had been bitten away from her sleeve. The front had become slick with glistening red. I saw her grandmother’s wedding ring on her hand as it passed my face gripping my Glock. I suddenly noticed she had cut her hair short. She actually allowed herself bangs for the first time in her life. Her jaws were clenched, facial muscles tightened.
A burnt and blistered face appeared in the painting with its cracked yellowed teeth sinking deep into Abby’s throat.
My body reacted without thinking. I grabbed the pistol from her hand and shot the thing between the eyes. Searing hot gunpowder peppered our faces with tiny burning pinpricks. The ejected shell bounced off my forehead as it flew by. I heard Lexi scream something from above us between, but I wasn’t paying her much attention.
With a strength I didn’t know I had, I launched us both into the rig. I slammed the door, locking it and every other one that could give the monsters a way in. I searched frantically for anything that could help Abby. Blood pumped in streams from her throat, gathering into a deepening pool on the floor. I dropped down beside her, resting her head on my lap. My hand pressed tightly on the wound trying to stop the flow. With every beat of her heart more of her life spurted between my fingers.
