Love and Decay (Season 1): Episodes 1-6

by Higginson, Rachel

  “Haley, we need to go,” I whispered harshly.

  I heard her zip up her pack and shoulder it, but I could barely make out her form anymore. We’d learned to act as soon as a command was given between us. There was no time to hesitate anymore, so by the time I’d slipped my heavy backpack on again, she was already moving toward the exit.

  One of the weirdest parts of the Apocalypse was the quiet. I couldn’t get used to it. Back in my old life, before the infection, there seemed to always be noise around. Cars on the highway, music from my iPod, airplanes overhead, my parents talking at me; there was always something in my ear. Now, there was nothing, no background elevator jazz to soothe us while we shopped, no other shoppers bustling around and bumping into us. The only sound to break up the silence was our careful footsteps and the heavy mouth-breathing from a Feeder in the next room.

  Oh shit!

  I grabbed the handle on Haley’s backpack and tugged her backward. Her head whipped around and she opened her mouth to probably ask what the hell, but I held my finger to my lips and motioned with my head toward the way we just came from. It took her a second, but as soon as she heard the panting and wheezing in the next room she was instantly game for my plan of retracing our steps.

  There was plenty of food for the bastard in the room he was in now, but I knew he would be able to sniff out our live, fresh flesh in the next two minutes and that was like the difference between prime rib and an old, moldy hot dog.

  Best case scenario, he was going to lick the hot dog first, and come back for it later, after he ate his prime rib.

  Which was me.

  I stepped carefully until we were back in the Junior’s Department, always keeping my gun trained on the direction of the Feeder. Haley stood a little bit behind me, her gun aimed to the left where this area opened up to the children’s section.

  “Son of a bitch,” she breathed on a strangled whisper.

  A quick glance toward the direction of her pointed gun, showed the glowing red eyes of two different Feeders. That was the signature of the last stage of their digression into Zombie-hood: first came the cravings for flesh, then the heart stopping in a semi-death, the disgusting process in which their brain still worked, but their bodies started to decay and then the tell-tale red eyes, showing basically that all humanity was lost. By then, they were stronger, didn’t feel pain and only craved brains.

  Basically, this sucked.

  They could smell us, but couldn’t see us yet, and so they were still trying to pinpoint us before they attacked. Unfortunately, we could also smell them. What really sucked was that there were at least three of them, these two and the one munching away on all that delicious dead flesh.

  They weren’t exactly pack animals, and usually they traveled- wandered aimlessly- alone; but if they ever found themselves together it was like they shared a hive brain or something. They acted as a team, without speaking or seemingly communicating, and once their eyes were red they were a hundred times harder to take down.

  Our backs were against the wall, literally, and I wasn’t exactly sure how we were going to get out of this one.

  I glanced over my shoulder again and noticed for the first time an exit toward the corner of the room. A discounted clothing rack had been pushed up against it, and it was barely visible in the almost completely-dark room, but a reflected Exit sign was still pasted on the top.

  As quietly as I could, I whispered, “Behind us, Hale. An exit. Lead or Cover?”

  Haley let my noise settle before she answered. The Feeders had already started moving toward us. Despite every Zombie movie I had ever seen, the real life versions were not exactly the dumb and easy to kill version of walking corpses. They were hunters, fast and intuitive. While humanity still had the advantage of a rationalizing, fully functioning, not-addicted-to-living-flesh advantage, they weren’t exactly a helpless opponent.

  “Cover,” Haley finally whispered back.

  And with her blessing I turned on my heel and sprinted for the door. I could feel her behind me, but out of experience, I knew she was keeping her gun trained on the Zombies that were now chasing us down to make snacks out of our innards. I gave up on being quiet and threw anything that stood in my way.

  The trip across the room took maybe five seconds, but it felt like the longest run of my life. I could already hear the Zombie from the other room tearing his way to join his friends. My heart was hammering in my chest, my vision focused only on the exit and my ears trained to listen for any surprises.

  As soon as they were in my reach, I grabbed onto the tightly-packed, discounted clothes and went to toss the rack, but it only swayed. Something was holding it to the ground.

  Pure panic prickled my blood and my eyes watered immediately from the stress of the situation. I heard Haley’s gun go off behind me, but because the mouth-breathing was so loud I knew she had missed.

  That meant she had four bullets left in her magazine.

  Shit. Shit. Shit.

  I pulled again on the rack of clothes and this time it moved an inch. I realized then that it was tethered by something on the ground. While Haley shot off another bullet, I dropped to my hands and knees and felt blindly for whatever was holding onto the base of the rack. Once I found the thick rope that was tied to the base, I whipped out my pocket knife I kept in the pocket of my pants and began cutting at the rope frantically.

  Another shot from behind me and one of the Feeders dropped to the ground. Good shot, Hales. There were still at least two more Feeders left, and I could hear more commotion from the front entrance. All these shots were probably drawing everything out there in here.

  I finally got through the rope, but as soon as the slack was gone, something huge and clanging crashed to the ground just on the other side of the door. It sounded like pots or pans and a whole bunch of breaking glass.

  Shit!!!

  I didn’t have time to process that right now, so I stood up, effectively shoved the rack out of the way and went for the door handle. Another gun shot behind me and another Feeder dropped to the ground.

  I lunged for the door handle, and turned it desperately. And nothing.

  It was locked.

  “No!” I screamed, not caring about the noise level at this point.

  Haley’s last bullet exited her gun and the last Feeder felt the hit and fell to the ground directly behind me. These guys were dead, but there were who knew how many now headed toward us. Haley was out of bullets, and I had three left.

  And our only exit was locked.

  “What are you waiting for, Reagan. Let’s get the hell out of here!” Haley’s back was still to me as she faced her now empty gun at the hallway, just waiting for the rest of the Feeders to follow the sounds and find us.

  “It’s locked! Damn it!”

  Completely panicked, I yanked on the handled and kicked it with my new shoe. Nothing happened. The door stayed firmly locked, stubbornly unmoving. This was definitely worst case scenario.

  And not ten minutes ago I had been really excited about all that eye liner and a new pair of jeans.

  This was so not how I was going out. I’d survived Quarterback-Chris, the death of my parents and almost two freaking years of living as the most depressing version of Mila Jovovich in Resident Evil ever.

  “Open, damn it!” I screamed at the door, giving it another kick with my foot.

  Only this time, my foot didn’t connect with anything. The door wrenched open and my body flew, following my foot, through the empty space I wasn’t expecting. I fell straight to my hands and knees in a huge pile of glass shards and broken ceramic. I felt the thick chunks of debris dig and slice through my skin immediately. My jeans would be completely irreparable after this and, with my luck, as soon as I was able to stop bleeding; I was for sure going to get gangrene.

  What the hell?

  “What the hell, Reagan?” Haley practically screamed at me as soon as she was through the doorway. She slammed the door behind her and braced her body
against it; meanwhile, I was still doggy style in a pile of glass I was too afraid to stand up from.

  The damage was going to be annoyingly excessive.

  Before I could answer her though, I heard the signature click of a bullet being loaded into the chamber. More dread slithered through my body; other humans were just as deadly and dangerous as Zombies these days. And apparently we were trespassing.

  “Don’t move,” a deep, masculine voice ordered in a quiet, steely tone.

  “Out of the frying pan,” Haley mumbled resignedly.

  “And into the fire,” I finished for her.

  I would never complain about eyeliner again.

  Chapter Two

  “You, drop your gun and put your hands in the air,” the obviously male voice ordered Haley roughly.

  Another click of a gun from behind us and I started trying to count shoes from my position on the floor. Blood pooled around my palms and knees, making the glass-littered ground sticky and wet. The stairwell was completely dark though, except for some kind of lamp that was shining from the top of a stairwell; it cast long, shadowy streaks of light down on us, but kept every face hidden in darkness.

  I heard Haley’s gun drop to the floor with unnecessary force behind it, crashing into the glass and ceramic. “Fine,” she growled. “But, it was empty anyway.”

  A snort of laughter sounded from the guy in the back and I almost smiled. God, Haley could be feisty- which was definitely a good thing when we found ourselves sandwiched between Zombies and armed men that probably hadn’t gotten consensually laid since the outbreak.

  “Now you,” the man addressed me. I felt more than saw his gun swing in my direction. “Stand up slowly.”

  “Do I have to?” I winced, thinking about my injured hands and knees. I was putting pressure on them now, so even though there was pain, I had staunched any chance of a river of blood. If I stood up, and let my hands hang limply in the air, I would be covered in Zombie-nip in no time. Mostly I was worried about being sticky for the next couple of days. Blood was a pain in the ass to scrub off, especially if there wasn’t clean water around. “I’m bleeding here.”

  “You’re bleeding?” the guy asked dryly.

  “I’ve been booby-trapped,” I drawled.

  Haley chuckled, and nudged me with her foot. “She’s been booby-trapped.”

  That made me giggle, too. Apparently, the stress of our situation was not enough to dampen our sense of humor.

  “We have guns,” the guy with said gun explained unnecessarily. “This isn’t a joke.”

  “But you’re not going to shoot us,” Haley argued.

  “I’m not?”

  “We’re hot. You’ll at least rape us first,” she explained on a hysterical giggle.

  “At least,” I echoed, my laughter bouncing off the floor. “Just don’t give us herpes.”

  “We’re not going to rape you!” The guy in the back defended, sounding absolutely disgusted by the idea. Well, that was a good sign.

  “Are you two high?” the first gunman asked incredulously.

  This only caused us to laugh harder, until a hand hit the outside of the door aggressively. We all jumped at the sound. Another fist came down on the heavy metal door, just to the left of Haley’s head. And then another. The Feeders had arrived.

  “Up, now. We’ll take care of the bleeding upstairs,” I was commanded from above.

  I knew I didn’t have a choice at this point. One Feeder might not be able to break down the door, but the incessant pounding would draw others and there was no telling what an entire horde of them could do.

  I stood up slowly, flicking the loose pieces from my kneecaps and the heels of my hands with the tips of my fingers. I couldn’t close my palms or straighten my legs completely, so I had to stand at an awkward angle, allowing the blood to run and drip from every cut.

  “Those look bad, Reags,” Haley hissed, concern entrenched in every syllable. Zombies didn’t faze her; guns made her laugh, but my deep cuts were enough to get her to take this seriously. She was a good friend.

  “I’ll be okay,” I assured her.

  “Let’s go,” the guy with the gun ordered before she had a chance to say anything else.

  We followed the direction of his pointed gun and marched up the stairs. He pushed Haley in front of me, which was a travesty since my gun was tucked into the back of my pants. She would have known that and if she would have been behind me she could have grabbed it.

  I hobbled up the stairs, still crooked at the knees. I took careful steps, gingerly holding onto Haley’s hand as we went. The stairs were just as covered with broken glass and pieces of everything else. The farther we got up the stairs, even Haley had to duck because all kinds of cookware and gardening tools were hanging from the ceiling. A human would have had to have their wits together to bob and weave these traps, but Feeders were single minded and stupid. Maybe it wouldn’t have been enough to impale them or maim them, but it would make a lot of noise if someone came running up these stairs knocking pans, rakes and shovels together.

  I started to get the impression that this was a permanent settlement for these guys. A nervous tingle ran down my spine when I wondered how many of them there actually were.

  In our travels, Haley and I had come across a few scattered settlements. We were always careful to scope them out first, doing due diligence with our scouting. Some settlements included women and even children; those were generally safer even while outsiders made them understandably nervous. If we weren’t carrying the disease already, we could expose them to others who were, or deplete them of their coveted water and food supply. We always tried not to take anything from settlements. If we didn’t want anything other than a place to sleep for the night, they tended to trust us more.

  Other settlements were not nearly the safe-haven, though. Militia type groups, usually only enlisted with men, set up outposts all over the US in order to protect what was theirs. Whenever a group of just men got together it was like they lost millions of brain cells in the presence of all that testosterone. They became total cavemen, dangerous and unpredictable. They were just as deadly as Feeders, especially to women.

  Especially to a couple of young virgins, traveling by themselves…

  We were like the new Fountain of Youth. The white unicorn. The freaking Holy Grail.

  If I weren’t so worried about becoming a Zombie, I would have just given up the v-card months ago. Not that the Zombie gene was passed on like an STD, but they felt very closely related. It was like, die a virgin or get herpes, and if I got herpes I would obviously seek out the cure, because, uh… yuck, then because of the whole Zombie-itis thing I would definitely become a Feeder and the whole event would have been pointless.

  Ok, that was all fiction.

  I didn’t have to become a Zombie just because I had sex.

  But what happened to love? And commitment? Was that all gone just because I happened to live during the Apocalypse?

  I had a serious boyfriend before the world went to shit and he tried to eat me- and not in the sexy way. We planned this whole after prom experience; there would have been rose petals on the bed and whispered I love you’s. Even if he was a cheating asshole, that still sounded better than meeting up with a stranger and losing it on the dirty floor of some abandoned Wal-Mart.

  Plus, who knew about safe sex these days? I didn’t exactly come prepared with baby-preventing merchandise. And I was so not filming Teen Mom Zombie Apocalypse Edition.

  We passed the spotlight when we rounded the corner and were ordered up the next flight of stairs. I sighed at the thought of struggling up another set of steps, but marched on, knowing I didn’t have a choice.

  “Do you need some help?” The guy in the way back asked quietly.

  “Uh, I’ll be okay,” I replied quickly. Maybe it was a sign of the times, but where the hell had that come from? I wasn’t exactly used to chivalry, and the very idea of it completely freaked me out.

  “I
t’s just up at the top of the stairs,” the main gunman explained. I ignored the softening of his tone. I had to assume this was going to go one of two ways, Haley and I were about to made into sister wives for an entire community of vigilante men that had forgotten how to give the girl hers first, or this was an execution and they didn’t want blood and bodies anywhere near where Feeders could find a way into their hidey-hole. Neither of those options appealed to me.

  At the top of the stairs, the guy from the back walked past, gun held at his side, and knocked on another heavy steel door. The door was opened and a stream of light flooded the stairwell. I blinked against the brightness my eyes weren’t used to, and dipped my head.

  Following Haley’s feet, I shuffled inside the third floor of the department store and heard the door slam and lock behind us. The sound of sliding, heavy furniture could be heard behind me and eventually, when my eyes adjusted, I turned around to see four cash register counters lined up in front of the exit. It wouldn’t keep out a mob of Feeders, but it would be enough to stop the lone wanderer, or even a group of ten or fifteen.

  My mouth dropped as I let my gaze take in the rest of the space. These guys had commandeered the entire third floor. This was an older style department store, in what had always been a small town, so there wasn’t an escalator in the middle of the floor, but there was a set of stairs that had been rebuilt with heavy steel pieces that had been welded together in a makeshift strong box. The elevators off to the side had been boarded up, too, with steel and metal. From a quick glance around, the only exit or entrance even accessible was the doors we just came through.

  Couches and beds had been set up in sections; rooms were made from curtains hanging from the ceiling. A kitchen of sorts was also set up with a camping grill, a basin for water and several coolers that probably contained dried food. There were three other guys hanging out, guns hanging limply from their fingertips while they surveyed us with suspicious eyes.

  Haley gave a flirty wave that I knew she didn’t mean. If any of these guys came near her with bad intentions she would detach their manhood from their bodies with her teeth.