Which was one of the reasons sleep came in short, quick bursts. Even though she was so exhausted that her muscles felt as if they were made of overcooked spaghetti, she had to be ready. Ready to clamp her hand over Jeremy’s mouth, to push the words back into his throat if she could. Ready to keep her loved ones safe.
She didn’t have to worry about Mama, however. About two weeks earlier they’d been attempting to sneak through a heavily infested area just outside of Redfield. There were rumors of a FEMA rescue station nearby and her stepfather, Denny, had insisted on scouting the route ahead of them. They’d followed about fifty yards behind and hid behind dumpsters or wrecked cars when he’d form his hand into a fist and then move on when he’d wave. Start and stop. Duck and hide, picking their way through the rubble and debris of a once proud society. But then he’d been pulled down by a pack of corpses that seemed to appear from nowhere, ripped apart right before their very eyes. Sometimes she’d still see him in her dreams: the way he fought and clawed and punched even as his knees buckled from the force of the assault… the bright, crimson arc of blood that spurted with slow-motion clarity as teeth pulled strands of flesh and muscle from a throat no longer capable of producing sound. He’d been a good husband and decent stepfather but, in the end, had made a horrible scout. He should have pushed his ego aside and listened to her suggestions instead of simply shrugging them off. Maybe if she’d been the one running point things would’ve turned out differently.
But she’d learned quickly that in this new world regrets could quickly get your ass killed.
You had to focus on the here and now, to push memory into the farthest corners of your mind and bury it beneath the weight of more pressing concerns. Food. Clean water. Shelter and survival.
The future operated on the same principle. In her previous life she’d had dreams: she’d finish college, get a job with a decent newspaper in a medium size town, get married, kids eventually. At some hazy point on the timeline of her life, the grandchildren would come bursting through the front door with squeals of Grandma! ; she’d shower them with hugs and treats and smile serenely at the man by her side… the man whose face she’d seen morph from the smooth flesh of the young into a wrinkled mask of experience. But things had changed, hadn’t they? Hopes and ambitions were now exclusively short-term; her ambitions had been reduced to making it through yet another night alive, of finding that mythical pocket of society that had somehow been untouched by the insanity that had swept over the world like a tsunami of death and mutilation. Life had been reduced to an almost constant state of now and those who dared to dream too long would quickly find themselves wrapped in the darkness of a sleep from which they would never awaken.
The world had changed. And she, in turn, had been forced to change with it.
The sun had just begun to paint the eastern horizon with streaks of amber and orange when she heard it: a scuffling sound from outside, so soft and furtive that it was almost lost beneath the rhythmic lull of her companions’ breathing. Footsteps? The sound of well-worn soles sliding over concrete and asphalt?
She closed her eyes and tried to listen for the sounds to repeat, to lock in their distance and general location; but her heart hammered in her chest with such force that she could only hear the whooshing of blood as it surged through her veins.
The cold hand of fear squeezed her stomach and caused bile to shoot up through her esophagus and flooded her mouth with stinging bitterness; beads of sweat dotted her forehead and the muscle below her left eye twitched like a caged bird longing for flight.
She held her breath.
Remained perfectly still.
Listening.
Praying.
Maybe it had only been the breeze. A yellowed scrap of newspaper, perhaps. Or a small animal. Dogs and cats were few and far between these days, having been hunted almost to extinction by the same masters who’d once showered them with toys and treats. They were rare, but not entirely unheard of.
Could that be it then? Nothing more than a mangy cur scavenging for carrion?
She took a breath through her nostrils so slowly that it took nearly ten seconds for her lungs to fill. She could smell the musty scent of age within the store, the smoky ghost of the fire that had gutted this place and refused to leave its haunt… the sharp bite of dried sweat. If the stench of rotting flesh existed outside the shattered shop window, it was masked by these other odors.
But surely the reek of a rotter would’ve overpowered them? It had been so hot lately that the sun-bloated corpses who staggered across the landscape traveled in a cloud of fetor so repugnant that even the flies shunned them.
Had she imagined it all? Perhaps she’d slipped into sleep for a fraction of a second and her mind had amplified the sound of the tarp shifting into something much more sinister?
That had to be it. The dead were notoriously noisy, caring not for stealth or cunning.
While it was true that they didn’t grunt or growl or groan, they were clumsy for the most part and prone to knocking over precariously balanced piles of rubble or kicking old bottles as they shuffled forward. Surely a freshie or rotter would’ve tripped across the string of tin cans she’d tied between the splintered telephone pole and an old parking meter by now; they weren’t smart enough to avoid traps, after all. Not even such primitive early detection systems as her’s.
Mere feet away, something thumped against the floorboards of the store and every muscle in her body tensed.
Fight or run? Shit, how many of them are there? Shit, shit, shit….
A long, slow creak as the wooden planks flexed beneath the weight of the intruder.
Just one. Has to be. More would be nosier. I can deal with just one. I know I can.
Her hand began crawling across the floor as if of its own accord, its fingertips searching for the cool reassurance of the tire iron.
Two blows. Quick crack to the skull to stun it. Then plunge the business end into the eye socket, go for the brain, use all your strength, all your weight, drive that fucker home.
The muscles in her arms and legs had begun to quiver with a mixture of fear and adrenaline; her heart thudded out a cryptic message in Morse code, and her throat felt as if it had somehow expanded to allow more air to flow into her lungs.
You can do this, girl. You wake up Mama and Jeremy and they’ll be dead before they’ve even cleared the cobwebs outta their minds. You have to do this.
Her fingers wrapped around the smooth metal of the tire tool and she lifted it from the floor so slowly that it almost seemed as if she suspected it would disintegrate if hoisted too quickly. Though her palms were warm and slick, the weight of the weapon immediately caused her breathing to even out.
Drop that fucker fast and then get the hell outta here…
Opening her eyes, she saw a dark shadow against the golden glow of sunrise on the wall. The silhouette was human shaped and grew larger with each beat of her heart. She couldn’t lie to herself any longer: they were not alone in this old store and the time had come to walk the tightrope between life and death.
She sprung from the floor with the speed of a striking serpent and vaulted across the counter in a single, fluid move. In her mind, a shrill battle cry trilled through the stillness of the morning and she felt the spirits of a thousand Amazonian warriors raise their spears and shields in solidarity. In reality, however, she was as silent and swift as sudden death; only her eyes reflected the intensity of the rage that boiled within her, the grim determination of a woman who would not go gentle into that good night.
The man across from her scrambled backwards as his hands flew up in an open palmed display of surrender; his eyes grew wide beneath his curly bangs and he continued backpedaling as his hoarse voice stammered words so quickly that the syllables all ran together.
“Wait! No! Alive! I’m alive! I’m living, here!”
For a moment, his pleading didn’t register in her mind. She continued her assault; the tire tool was raised above her head
like the sword of a charging samurai and, like those legendary weapons, seemed to demand a taste of blood before allowing itself to be lowered. The man’s hands shot to the rifle slung over his shoulder and snapped it into firing position as his knees braced himself against the force of the attack.
“Damn it, I’m not one of them!”
His sharp tone cut through the haze of battle and she stopped so suddenly that momentum almost caused her to stumble forward. They stood facing each other for what seemed to be an eternity: she with the tire iron poised and ready to strike, he with the bore of his rifle staring at her like a dark, unblinking eye.
“Please, I don’t want to shoot you. But I will. I swear to God, I will.”
“You’re… you’re really alive?”
“No, I’m the smartest damn zombie that ever existed. What the hell do you think? Of course, I’m alive.”
She felt a hand on her shoulder and a familiar voice whispered in her ear.
“It’s okay, sweetie… “
Jeremy. She’d been so focused on her attack that she hadn’t even heard him stir. But it stood to reason that the flurry of activity would’ve awakened him. Mama, too, most likely.
“Look, folks, I’m here to help. I really am.”
Together, the two of them lowered their respective weapons. She was breathing heavily now, her chest heaving with each breath, and for some reason tears had begun to make the world around her swim in and out of focus. She blinked rapidly, trying to focus on the bearded man in the tattered clothes whom she’d been mere seconds away from killing; but he wavered as if she were viewing him from the other side of a waterfall and the first tear had just begun to leave its warm path down her cheek as he unclipped the walkie talkie from his belt.
“Eden Team, this is Serpent Six, over.”
There was a hiss of static and then his voice again.
“Serpent Six to Eden Team. Come in, Eden Team. Over.”
“Serpent Six this is Eden Team. Over.”
The voice was thin and soft, but it was the voice of someone else like them. Someone left alive in a world ruled by the dead.
“Eden Team, I have three survivors. Two female, one male, none apparently infected. Repeat… I have three survivors. Over.”
“Serpent Six, rendezvous at Alpha Base One at oh-nine-hundred hours. Reanimate activity in sector seven high. Advance with extreme caution. We’ll notify The Garden that the mission was successful and we’re coming home. Over.”
“Copy that, Eden Team. Serpent Six, out.”
There hadn’t been much time for conversation, but she’d learned the man’s name was Donnely and he was apparently nothing more than a small cog in a much larger machine. What the man on the other end of the radio had referred to as The Garden.
The Garden, Donnely had explained, was a collective that had established a fortified outpost about half a day’s walk from their current location. Whereas the dregs of humanity seemed content with cowering in the shadows like frightened animals, The Garden had loftier ambitions. They were going to rebuild society, reclaim the coveted position at the top of the food chain, and re-establish mankind’s dominance over the world. The human race, he said, had been decimated and the undead far outnumbered the living. But in the future they envisioned, the tide would be turned. Children would be trained as efficiently as soldiers and once their numbers were great enough they would rise up against the undead in one, final battle. Within fifteen to twenty years, tops, the world would be theirs again and the blight of the living dead would be no more than a chapter in history books yet to be written.
It had sounded so promising: a place where they would be sheltered from the horrors of the outside world, a society that still functioned, that sent out teams to find those still left alive and bring them back… no wonder they referred to themselves with terms like Eden and The Garden. True, their ambitions sounded lofty. But at least they still had goals and plans. At least they could envision a world that consisted of something more than picking at the carcass of civilization like nomadic scavengers. At least they had hope.
So they had followed this man, Donnelly. She and Jeremy and Mama had allowed him to guide them through the maze of mangled cars and toppled buildings. They had slipped through the wreckage of the city like ghosts, skirting around enclaves of rotters so skillfully that the dead never realized they were there. For the most part, they progressed in silence; but every so often, when Donnely decided they were well out of harm’s way, they would stop for a quick rest. During this down time, they would whisper to one another and she slowly began to grasp the full extent of The Garden’s plans.
“To beat your enemy,” Donnely had told them, “you first have to understand him.”
He was part of Eden Team, whose job was to search out those wandering the wastelands who would be able to assist in repopulating the cities of the earth. But there was also a group he referred to as The Tree of Knowledge. Their entire purpose, he said, was to study the undead menace. But not, just the ways in which they could be dispatched. No, The Tree of Knowledge wanted to know everything they could about their adversaries.
“Everyone knows a bite will kill your ass and bring you back. But did you know that any exchange of bodily fluids will do the same damn thing? You kiss someone who’s infected, for example, and get even the smallest amount of spit in your mouth and you’re done for.”
When he spoke about The Garden and its various projects, his voice raised slightly in pitch and the words came more rapidly. Breathlessly, he told them about the actual gardens where they grew crops, the kitten nurseries with their self-replenishing sources of meat, and the various ways they had of collecting and purifying water; and the entire time, his green eyes shone with the light of the true believer.
His enthusiasm was as contagious as any of the corpses in this God forsaken land. As they pressed on, her mind was filled with images of what The Garden would be like: how she would never have to know the sharp pangs of hunger or the fear of darkness again. Perhaps she and Jeremy would be able to recapture the sort of life that, just hours ago, she was sure they had been robbed of. Only, hopefully, it would be better than she’d ever dreamed.
Her stepfather had never really approved of her boyfriend. He’d said Jeremy was weak and unfocused, that she could do so much better than a guy whose major goal in life was to beat the most current level of whatever video game he was playing. And, on some level, she’d kind of agreed with Denny… even though she would never outwardly admit it. She’d silently hoped that someday her boyfriend would tire of being just another telemarketer tethered to his cubical by a headset; maybe he’d start to dream of management or even actually creating the games he loved playing so much. A little time at the gym wouldn’t have hurt either… even before fresh food had become as rare as gold, Jeremy had been thin and gangly. Kind of like a tall, pubescent boy really.
But maybe The Garden would have the positive effect on him that had somehow been lacking in their previous lives. Perhaps there he would find something he was so passionate about that his eyes would spark with excitement the way Donnelly’s did. He might even decide that he wanted to become part of Eden Team and those thin arms might bulk up with the same sinewy muscle that strained at the sleeves of their guide’s t-shirt. Not that she wanted him to be exactly like their new-found benefactor; she did love him for who he was, after all. But a little maturity wouldn’t hurt… would it?
After what seemed like hours of walking, the group finally crested a small hill that overlooked a valley lush with trees and a patchwork of multicolored foliage. The sun was hanging low in the sky but the temperature had already begun to climb which caused her skin to be coated with a sheen of sweat. From this distance she could just make out a stream that snaked its way through the valley below; its waters sparkled as if millions of pixies bobbed on its surface and it was all too easy to imagine how cool that water would be as it lapped against her sunburned skin, how good it would feel as it quenched the dry
harshness of her throat….
“Wait here.”
Donnely’s command had pulled her thoughts away from the meandering creek and back to the cluster of camouflaged tents clustered just within the grove of trees before them. Three men walked out to meet him, each with a rifle slung over their shoulders by a thin strap. All of the men were similar in build to their guide: muscular, seemingly well-fed and healthy, and obviously selected for Eden Team because of their athletic physique. However the center of attention seemed to be a short bulldog of a man with a neck so thick and brown that it could have passed for the trunk of a small tree. As the others spoke, this man kept shooting glances at the newcomers through his spectacles and something about his gaze had made her feel like an insect beneath a microscope.
She shifted her weight from foot to foot and kept discovering new patches of skin on her arms and face that needed scratched; something about this little man and his cold, hard eyes made her uneasy.
“Must be their leader.” Jeremy said. “Kinda looks like a general, huh?”
She’d nodded in response, maybe uttered some non-committal answer… she couldn’t be sure. All she knew was that, for reasons she couldn’t understand, she now felt as uneasy as if they were standing among a group of ravenous rotters. But that was ridiculous. These people were here to help, right? They were Eden Team. From The Garden.
The group of men disbanded, Donnely disappearing into the woods as the others walked slowly toward them. The one Jeremy had referred to as a general seemed to be smirking slightly and she’d gulped hard, trying to tell herself that it was simply thirst that made her feel as if her airways were constricting.
Maybe if they’d actually said something, she would have felt better. But no. General Bulldog and one of them men stopped several yards away from them and seemed to study the small group with their eyes. At the same time, the other man circled around them and for some reason the image of a pack of dogs came to mind: the way they would circle their prey, cutting off any means of escape before lunging into their attack.
Sex in the Time of Zombies Page 10
