The sound of glass crashing to the ground shook him from his reverie. Mark shot straight up and clutched the wall of the bathroom stall. When he heard the moans, his stomach flopped.
They had gotten into the office.
Mark didn’t know what to do. He had left all of his gear in the cubicle where he’d slept. He felt completely vulnerable sitting on a toilet with nothing but a handful of toilet paper to defend himself. He tried to think quickly, but his thoughts were interrupted when he heard the door to the men’s restroom creak open noisily.
Very slowly, Mark edged onto the toilet seat so that his feet were no longer visible from underneath the stalls. He perched there, quiet as a church mouse, waiting, worrying. He could hear it groaning, its steps shuffling as it crossed the threshold towards the stalls. He incrementally rose to his feet and peered over the top of the stall, his curiosity and fear getting the best of him at the same time.
The zombie was severely decayed. The creature’s eyes were sunken in to the point that it almost looked as if it didn’t have any eyes, only hollow sockets that searched around the room in vain. Thin, wispy strands of white hair skimmed its neck forming a decrepit halo around its bald scalp. It wore the tattered remains of a blue button-down business shirt, and its stained gray tie was so tight around its neck that Mark was sure the thing had hung itself in its former human life.
He had high hopes that it was blind, and that he would be able to sneak past it, but then it turned to the large mirror opposite the stalls and stared right at him. Mark’s own eyes widened, and he ducked as fast as he could. He shut his eyes as he crouched on the toilet seat.
Moments passed, and Mark had just cautiously opened one eye when a feverish banging commenced on the door to his stall.
He held back a scream and pushed against the door, an unnecessary measure considering it was locked.
The noise would attract others. But then the banging stopped, and Mark stepped back, frightened and uncertain.
A shadow spread across the floor, and to Mark’s horror, the zombie’s face appeared beneath the door, turned at an unnatural angle as it struggled to pull the rest of its body through the stall. Its eyes bulged as it wriggled around, and its mouth was open so wide that Mark was sure if given the opportunity, it could swallow his leg whole.
He couldn’t hold back his scream this time. He kicked at the zombie with his socked foot until its head was no longer in his stall, then he shimmied under the other four stalls and rolled out from beneath the last one. He leapt up on the other side just as the zombie was rising to its feet. Mark could hear its rickety tendons and bones popping and snapping from the effort.
He yanked open the door and ran through the cubicles, dodging the many zombies that blocked his path until he was able to grab his bag and exit the office through the shattered window.
As he sprinted down the street, the gravel splicing through his socked feet, it dawned on him that he had forgotten his shoes. He groaned, throwing glances over his shoulder to make sure no zombies were following him. He would have to find another pair when it was safer.
Little by little, he was growing accustomed to this dangerous new lifestyle. Thus far, it had been an unsavory adventure. He’d been forced to sleep on a cold roof without a blanket to avoid the frantic clutches of the zombies; he’d gone three days without one thing to eat because he was too scared to go into any house or store that might have monsters lurking within; he’d had to evade hordes of them; and he’d done it all alone. While he had started out as a scared little boy, in a matter of weeks, he was turning into more and more of a survivalist. Bruce Willis would have been proud… if he wasn’t already a zombie.
***
Brett hadn’t said a word since Haven had pushed Phillip out of the car.
He was livid to the point that he couldn’t even talk to her, shocked by her murderous actions.
Phillip had still been alive when she’d tossed him out. Alive.
That made her a murderer.
And she hadn’t even batted an eyelash. He knew Haven better than anyone, but in just a few hours, he felt like something had snapped inside of her, and she was slowly becoming a person he didn’t know so well anymore. That scared him.
Nevertheless, a small voice in his head told him that she had done it to save all of them. In actuality, what had he expected to do with Phillip? Bring him back to the safety of his grandmother’s house? While he didn’t fully understand the complexities and dangers of the outbreak, when he saw his friend plummet to the gravel to what would have been considered certain death, but then rise to his feet as though nothing had happened, he knew that something was very, very wrong.
He shook his head despondently as he drove. So much chaos and misery from one bite.
One question troubled him, eating away at his moral compass. If the tables were turned, and a friend of Haven’s was infected, would he have done the same thing? Shoved her out of the car like garbage to protect those he loved?
Brett sighed, his gut telling him that he wouldn’t have been able to do it.
His eyes surveyed the sights before them. Much like the one from which he had been rescued, the small towns they passed along the way had been obliterated to nothing. His stomach twisted in knots as he drove. They were so close to their grandmother’s house. How had all of this reached Green Acres already?
When they turned in to the neighborhood moments later, several houses along the road were on fire. There was destruction everywhere, sheer pandemonium. Doors lay wide open, windows broken. A smoking corpse was sprawled over a windowsill, flames engulfing its torso as it hung there motionless.
He and Haven gasped simultaneously when they saw his childhood friend, Danny Moser. His tall, thin body was impaled on a wooden fence post next to the driveway. Two figures in EMT uniforms were hunched over his quivering form. At first, Brett was hopeful that they were helping him. He almost stopped the car so that he could get out and run to Danny’s aid, but something remote in the back of his mind warned him against doing so.
Brett pressed his hand to the window, leaning forward to get a better look. He shrank back when the men turned at the sound of the passing vehicle. Their eyes widened as they methodically shoved ropey lengths of Danny’s intestines into their mouths, yellowish goo oozing around their lips. Unable to look away, he saw his friend’s arms slowly start to flail around, struggling to free himself from the fence post as the vehicle passed. Danny’s milky eyes told Brett that it was too late for him.
Images of the two of them as kids playing football together in the road flashed across his memory. He shut his eyes again and held his head in his hands, the harsh reality of what Haven had said to him earlier finally sinking in, making sense. Brett felt like he was going to vomit all over the floor of car.
“No,” Haven whispered, interrupting his reminiscing. His foot hit the brake without warning, and he turned to look at what caused her reaction.
The house where Brett and his sisters had spent endless summer days swimming and fishing by the lake, eating delicious home-cooked meals, telling ghost stories by the fireplace, celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas year after year, making so many memories his head spun, was now... infested.
Verminous creatures milled about stiffly in the front yard; others relentlessly pushed at windows and doors that weren’t already broken around the perimeter. There was no way anyone inside could still be alive.
Brett pulled into a cluster of trees across the street to remain somewhat hidden from view.
Haven stared ahead, her heart pounding.
“They have to be alive,” she said through clenched teeth.
“If they weren’t, why else would they be trying to get inside?” Brett added, clearing his throat and speaking for the first time in an hour as he scanned the surroundings for a way into the house. “We need to get everyone out. That seemed to work last time.”
Haven shook her head. “There’s no way that the same diversion I used to get yo
u out of your school will give us enough time to sneak in, get Faith and Grandma, and pull out all of our food, water, and survival gear. That would take several trips regardless, and we’ll be bogged down with boxes, making it impossible to properly defend ourselves. Grandma is tough, but she’s also eighty years-old so she’s slow. We can’t risk it.”
She surveyed their surroundings, her eyes sharp and focused, but her mind tormented when she thought about her family in so much peril. “We need to get in there. Our supplies are in the attic. We don’t have hardly anything to eat or drink in this car. The gas tank is close to empty, and even if we did siphon gas from other cars, with this many zombies around, we wouldn’t stand a chance. We could leave Green Acres tonight, but we would have no idea what the rest of the state looks like, or if we’d even have the opportunity to raid another place when we came across one. Grandma and I were lucky. When we got to that Wal-Mart, there weren’t any zombies. Now look around. This infection is spreading like wildfire. The whole town is probably flooded with these things. The attic is our best bet. They can’t climb to get to us. I think the best thing to do is hole up for a while, make a long-term plan, and wait for them to lose interest and wander off.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” Brett admitted, trying to put his animosity behind him. “But how are we going to get in?”
“We’re going to create a different kind of diversion, one that will let us stay here versus get out.” They leaned in together as she fleshed out the plan. “We can leave the car away from the house so that if we need to get to it in the future, it won’t be surrounded by zombies. Wait here until you see me draw them away, then get in there.”
Brett looked at her skeptically. “There are dozens around. How are you going to lead them away?”
Haven shrugged nonchalantly. “Hoot, holler, make some noise.”
Brett was apprehensive. “As mad as I am at you right now, that’s too risky. They’ll eat you.”
Haven chuckled. “Well, I’m not going to stand there and let them nibble away! They’ll have to work for their meal.”
She glanced at him and caught him smiling, feeling a momentary sense of relief to put the evening’s earlier events behind them and focus on the situation at hand.
“I’ll be fine. I’m going to run around the block, make sure the ones outside follow me, and then double back to the house. If I’m fast enough, I’ll lose the majority of them, and they won’t be able to figure out where I went,” Haven explained. “You’re stronger than I am, so if you come across any zombies inside, you’ll be able to fend them off more easily. Plus you’re a better shot. Once you’re inside, get to the attic window and find a gun. Grandma has a good selection of them up there for you to choose from. Be ready to cover me if I need it. Let’s hope I don’t. I’d like to pretend as though this will just be another typical evening run.”
She counted her lucky stars that before the outbreak, she had committed to nightly runs in preparation for her FBI training at Quantico. She never dreamt that such preparation would be the driving point behind her plan to outrun her neighbors and friends, the same people who were now walking corpses hungry for her flesh.
Brett began to shake his head. Haven could sense that her brother was worried and didn’t want to go through with her plan. If she was honest, her idea had nothing to do with the fact that she was a runner. There was simply no way that Haven was going to let him be the bait for the zombies.
Before he could protest, she quietly opened the back door and got out of the car, grabbing the improvised stake she had taken from her brother’s dorm room.
“Haven, no!” he hissed as she silently shut the door.
She ignored him and jogged over to the edge of the yard. She threw a quick look over her shoulder and saw that Brett was now crouched low in his seat, hidden from the view of the nearby horde.
Haven tucked the metal chair leg into her belt and made her way to an overturned ambulance, its once blaring sirens forever silent. Gripping a tire tightly, she climbed onto its side. She carefully checked the interior of the vehicle before rising to her feet to make sure no one would grab her from within. Just as she’d thought, its former passengers were now the ones munching away at poor Danny Moser who was still stuck on the fence.
Satisfied that the undead would be able to see her from her perch, she started jumping up and down, waving her arms in the air wildly.
“Hey!” Haven screamed at the top of her lungs.
Dozens of hideous faces turned to her.
She definitely had their attention. Their eyes followed her erratic movements as if slowly registering that they were looking at a fresh, tasty morsel. Before long, the majority of the zombies surrounding the house on the front side were shifting in her direction.
Even more worrisome was the fact that others were coming out of the side yards of other houses. Their numbers were greater than she imagined. Even the EMT workers from Danny’s house had shambled into view, their mouths bright red against their gray faces.
Maybe this wouldn’t be as easy as she’d hoped.
“Crap,” she muttered, stomping around a few more steps on the ambulance before climbing down and breaking into a steady jog down the road. She didn’t want to run so fast that those around the house lost sight of her early on, but she also didn’t want to jog so slowly that it was easy for them to keep up.
Her feet hit the pavement rhythmically. She was a quarter of the way around the block when she stopped dead in her tracks. Two children stood in front of her, blocking her path.
Jake and Amy O’Brien, the sweet children she used to babysit.
Haven’s face fell, and her breath caught in her throat. “No,” she croaked.
The children were monstrous, retaining next to nothing recognizable from their former lives.
Amy, only a few years old, glared at her from clouded eyes. Her once adorable pink and green watermelon dress was caked in blood. Her short blonde curls were matted to her cheeks, no longer bouncy and full as Haven remembered them. The flesh from the bottom half of her face was torn off, the edges jagged and raw, and her lower jaw was missing, a black, slimy tongue lolling out of her mouth. In her hand was the Etch-A-Sketch she’d so proudly shown Haven before she and Rosemary had left for Wal-Mart.
Jake suffered equally egregious wounds. Slightly older than his sister, he wobbled forward on an ankle that was nearly severed from the leg. It dragged along the gravel sideways, bones cracking and splintering with each step.
They both reached out to her, soft moans escaping their little mouths.
Haven stifled back a sob. How did this happen to them? Why were they still here? Christian had said they were leaving before the chaos reached the neighborhood. Yet here they were, broken and ravaged.
Haven gripped the chair leg tightly. She couldn’t leave them like this, wandering the rest of their days soulless and starving. She wouldn’t have bothered putting anyone else from the neighborhood out of their misery, but these were children, and she had known them personally and loved them.
She cast a quick glance behind her, noting that the horde gathering from the houses was gaining on her steadily.
Amy and Jake were only a few feet away, their snarls getting more desperate as they neared her.
She took a deep breath and stepped forward, silently pleading with God to let her do what needed to be done and then forget this day for the rest of her life.
Chapter 20:
Brett left the car as quietly as possible, crouching low to the ground. He winced as the gravel crunched noisily beneath his shoes.
The zombies had drifted away from the house, choosing to pursue his noisy sister versus the silent inhabitants of the attic.
He wiggled himself into a thick set of hedges behind the lemon trees in his grandmother’s yard. As a kid, he had always dreaded pruning and trimming the shrubbery, but for once, he was grateful that Rosemary had put too many plants in her overgrown garden. He peered through the leaves
at the house. While the moaning of the horde could be heard further down the street, from where he sat, the coast was clear. He darted from the cover of the shrubs towards the house.
Near the walkway to the front door was a statue of Saint Francis that his grandmother had placed there when he was only a child. He knew it all too well and tilted it backwards. Underneath was a plastic Ziploc bag. He wiped off the mud and reached into it, pulling out a silver key. He got to the door and unlocked it, slowly edging it open with his back while both hands were wrapped firmly around the baseball bat.
The house smelled of rot and decay, a wretched, sour concoction of urine, feces, blood, vomit, and rancid flesh. He wrinkled his nose in disgust and looked around the room for any signs of the infected.
The carpets were stained with grisly drippings from the creatures as they decomposed. Mud, leaves, and twigs mixed with trails of blood and gore throughout the living room. Shards of glass and broken pieces of ceramic were everywhere. Dented pots and pans were scattered in the dining room. A few bodies near the kitchen lay motionless, finally allowed to rest in peace.
He looked sadly about the ruined home. All of a sudden, it wasn’t Grandma’s house anymore.
Eyes widening when he remembered something of importance, he turned and headed down a long corridor at the end of the house, pausing when he came to his old bedroom. Brett stepped into the dark room, bat held high until he reached a large wooden dresser. Pulling the first drawer open, he shuffled through several pairs of socks until he found it.
He had left his Glock 19 at his grandmother’s while in school because he wasn’t able to keep it on school property. Only able to use the gun on holidays, he would go out in the woods and hit a few targets whenever he had the chance.
One of his most prized possessions, it sat heavy in his hand. Brett was particularly proud of the guide rod laser he had installed on his gun in August. He clicked a tiny switch over to activate the little red light, watching the dot dance around the walls as he practiced his aim. The laser would make killing the zombies much, much easier.
The Good, the Dead, and the Lawless: The Undoing Page 21
