Generation Dead - 07

by Joseph Talluto

  I backed away from the window and stayed low. I moved slowly as to keep from attracting attention. My gut told me there was a zombie in the yard, and my instinct told me there was more than one. I moved silently towards the stairs and spent a few anxious moments trying to get up the wooden steps without too much creaking. At the top landing, I ran into Julia, who was much more dressed than she was before.

  “Hey, you.” She smiled at me and gave me a hug. “Everything okay?”

  “Right here, yes. Outside, no,” I said, pulling away. “There’s a zombie in the yard, and I have a feeling there’s more than one.” I went over to Jake’s door and tapped softly. I hoped he was already up, but I didn’t put much faith in that. I opened the door and saw he was still sleeping. I couldn’t wake him like I wanted to, by pouring a bucket of cold water on his head. I had to settle for subtle.

  “Jakey? Time to wake up. Jaaakey…” I tried to sound like our mother had when we were younger. For whatever reason, she never had to raise her voice. We would jump up at that sound as if we had been caught doing something we shouldn’t have.

  Jake cracked an eye at me, and then tilted his whole head my way. “Aaron? What gives?” Why are you up here?”

  “Zombie in the yard. Might be more. Better get dressed.” I kept it simple for the morning hours. Anything longer was a waste of time.

  Ten minutes later, we were at the top of the stairs. It was the one place in the house we couldn’t be seen from any windows, and being centrally located, our voices wouldn’t carry as far.

  “I only saw the one, but I get the feeling there’s more,” I said.

  “Any proof of that?” Jake asked, looking at his magazines and loosening his knives.

  “None outside of gut feeling,” I replied, taking out my tomahawk and checking the edges.

  “Good enough for me,” Jake said. “What do you want to do?”

  Julia spoke up. “It’s stupid to just go out there when it’s dark. The sun is coming up. Why not wait until we can see and then go deal with it, or them?”

  “Sounds good to me,” I said. “I just wish we hadn’t parked the truck so far away and left all of our heavy guns in it, along with our spare ammo.”

  “Stop being so damn gloomy,” Jake admonished. “We’re in Mayfair. Population of about a hundred. They all came here from other places, and all are survivors. If this sucker wanders their way, it’ll be dead before it knows it. Besides, what’s one zombie to us, anyway?”

  I had to admit he had a point, so I sat down on the top of the stairs and lay back onto the floor. Julia sat down with her back to the railing post so we could talk, albeit quietly. Jake went back to his room and stretched out on the floor, trying to get a few more winks before it became too difficult to sleep.

  Julia and I spoke of nothing, and everything. A nice conversation didn’t have to do with anything we did for a living. We talked about our mothers, our fathers, and about what we wanted to do with this life. Julia managed to put into words something I had been feeling, but couldn’t quite wrap my words around.

  “I feel like our dads left us a world that had a pretty good start, but somewhere along the way, things got a little confused, and if something isn’t done, we’re not going to like what the world will become. I mean, they founded a new country, but it seems like it’s falling backwards, and not going forwards. Like we’re wasting our potential and it will take generations to recover, if we ever do,” Julia said.

  I nodded in agreement. “It’s like the virus that makes the zombies. It starts out small, like a bite, but it spreads and kills and creates something unrecognizable from the original.”

  “Exactly. Question is, what is it and what do we do about it?” Julia looked at me with her very blue eyes and I wondered if my dad ever felt weak like this when mom looked at him the same way. It was strange, but it kind of gave me a purpose. I felt like I needed to do something to make this world a better place for Julia.

  “Not sure entirely for the future, but for right now, we need to get home, get this job done, and then we can focus on what to do about the backward decline we’re seeing,” I said, locking my hands behind my head and closing my eyes. Julia lay across me, with her head on her hands, looking at my face. I kept my eyes closed, just enjoying the moment. I didn’t know what the future held, but I was starting to get an idea and it wasn’t half bad.

  Chapter 33

  An hour later, I shook Julia and we both got up. It was much lighter outside and we could see a whole lot more, so we went into the room where Jake was and found him at the window looking out.

  “Any sign of our friend?” I asked.

  “Which one?” Jake replied ominously.

  “What do you mean?” Julia asked.

  Jake pulled away from the window with a shake of his head. “Didn’t see this coming.”

  I looked outside and my stomach did a turn. There had to be twenty zombies outside and those were just the ones I could see.

  “Where in hell did these guys come from?” I asked rhetorically.

  “No idea,” Jake said. “Maybe they had an outbreak at Mayfair and the lights of the truck brought them over here last night. Not finding anything, they’ve just hung out here before something causes them to move.”

  “Can we get them to move?” I asked. I knew it was an impossible question, but you never knew.

  “Unless you have a cat or dog in your pocket that needs to be somewhere else in a hurry, I’d say we’re pretty much screwed if they figure out we’re in here,” Jake replied.

  “I can’t tell you how grateful I am we left our heavy weapons in the truck,” I said, looking down on the scene. About fifteen to twenty zombies milled about aimlessly, while in the distance, more were coming. Just outside our vision, it looked like there were zombies on the ground, hunched over something. I really didn’t want to know what it was, but I had a sneaking suspicion about what it could be.

  “All right. So what do we have on us?” Julia brought us back into focus. “I have my gun, thirty rounds in my mags, and my knives. Aaron?”

  “I’ve got my axe, two knives, my gun, and forty-five rounds on me.” I said.

  “All right. That’s better. Jake?”

  “Just my knives,” Jake said.

  “No gun?”

  “In the truck.”

  “Ah. Okay, so we have seventy-five rounds between us, and knives and an axe. Anything else?” Julia asked.

  We turned out our pockets and discovered we had a box of matches, a length of cord, a compass, and a toothbrush.

  “Matches. This gives me an idea,” Jake said. “This house will go up like a candle, and if we can get the ghouls inside, we can take a good number of them out without a shot.”

  “I know there’s a catch,” I said.

  “Of course, there is, baby brother, but let me lead on this and educate you.” Jake smiled and I casually tried to hit him, but he easily ducked my punch.

  Jake educated the two of us. “I’m going downstairs and get into the basement to see what I can set on fire. I’ll attract the attention of the zombies outside, and get them to come in for a treat. Hopefully by that time, the floor will be ready to go up and we can get the most burn for our buck.”

  “How will we get away without being incinerated?” Julia asked, voicing my own question and hers at the same time.

  “We tie the sheets together to use as a rope, and head out a window with the least amount of zombies waiting for us.” Jake acted as if he thought this was a silly question.

  “And if you get delayed, or the zombies discover you before you can get back to us?” I asked.

  “Then I might need some help,” Jake said, clearly uncomfortable with the question.

  “Tell you what, big brother. I’ll go with you and wait at the stairs. At the very least, I can keep them off your back while you run for your life,” I said, checking my gun. It was a stainless Beretta 92FS, at least that’s what it said on the side. My dad gave it to me whe
n I was sixteen, telling me it used to be my uncle’s gun. It was the only thing I had of the man.

  “Oh, that’s kind of you. Thanks,” Jake said. He was trying to be sarcastic, but it wasn’t working through the relief he was obviously feeling.

  “Just get moving. I want to get out of here as soon as I can,” I said. I looked over at Julia. “You got the sheets part?” I asked.

  Julia smiled. “I got it. And I’ll cover your butts in case you need help from the stairway.”

  “Be right back.” I followed Jake and we made our way carefully down the stairs. The stairwell led to the living room, and it was a short trip through the kitchen to the basement stairwell. Trouble was, several windows just to our left looked out onto the porch, and there were at least six zombies on the porch, just milling about and looking confused. It was our first chance to get a good look at them. They were all fairly fresh, as far as zombies go, which meant Mayfair or somewhere close just had a bad outbreak. Their flesh hadn’t turned white yet, and they looked pretty normal. A few had wounds, but the majority had no marks on them at all that we could see. For an outbreak, this one was surprisingly clean. Another thing that was odd was the number of ghouls that had ropes on their wrists. That made no sense at all.

  Jake and I waited, looking for our chance to get away without being seen. It wasn’t easy, since we also had to be careful of the windows in the kitchen. If a zombie happened to see Jake, it was over.

  Quickly, Jake moved, and in a flash, he was gone. I heard him scramble through the kitchen, and then down the stairs. I had nothing to do but wait, and hope one of the zombies outside hadn’t seen him. So far they weren’t calling out, so we seemed to be lucky so far.

  For what seemed to be an eternity, I waited on the stairs. I counted the pictures on the wall. I unloaded and reloaded all of my magazines. I figured out my axe was actually sharper than my knife. I tied and retied my shoes. I found myself bored enough that I was looking for a marker so I could put mustaches on the people in the pictures.

  Chapter 33

  Suddenly, Jake appeared and he was walking casually. He went into each room and waved to the zombies outside. He then went to the back door and opened it, waving and hollering at the zombies. In an instant, he was the most popular girl at the party, and everyone wanted to dance. When the drift started towards the door, he jogged back inside, and ran to the front door, hooting and making noise to get attention. When that worked really well, he bolted for the stairs and I was just a step ahead of him.

  We waited at the top with Julia, who looked nervous and excited at the same time. She put her gun away, no longer needing it, and we waited for the house to start filling up. The first few zombies wandered through the downstairs, but not enough for what we wanted. The good news was zombies didn’t look up all that often, unless they had a reason. If we stood still and became part of the furniture, we were relatively safe where we were. Of course, if we were downstairs, they would be ripping us to shreds right now.

  The rooms began to fill up as more and more zombies came in the doors, and there were a good number of them at the bottom of the stairs. Smoke began to filter up as well, increasing out need to get out soon.

  I took the opportunity we had to look at the zombies carefully. They were very fresh, having turned only a few hours ago. Considering how many there were, and the lack of injuries, there was something wrong about this setup. I was about to bring it up to Jake when he started yelling.

  “Hey! Dumbasses! Up here, you ravenous wrecks! Come along, you can take a nice juicy bite out of my ass! Come on!” Jake was somewhat poetic in his smack-talk.

  As one, dozens of heads turned upwards, and simultaneously they opened their mouths and groans. It wasn’t a pretty sight, or a pretty sound. They all began moving towards the stairs, and the really creepy thing was they never broke eye contact. Even climbing the stairs, they would trip and fall, catch themselves or stumble down a bit, but they never stopped looking at us.

  “Moving on,” Jake said, and Julia pulled us towards the far bedroom. We left the other doors open, hoping we could fit as many as possible in the house before it completely went up.

  Inside the room, we closed the door, and Julia stuffed a couple of pillowcases under the door right before Jake and I moved a heavy dresser in front of the door. It wouldn’t hold them forever, but we just wanted to get them up here. The heavy footfalls in the hallway told us we were successful up to a point.

  “When might we make our escape?” I asked, eyeing the sheets that were twisted together and tied to one leg of a brass-framed bed.

  “We need to make sure as many of them are up here as possible.” Julia wandered over to the door and screamed a few times. It sounded pretty realistic, like someone was losing their mind over the thought of being torn to shreds and eaten while still alive. Go figure.

  Jake and I winced at the sound. “Didn’t know she was an actress, too,” Jake said.

  I held my hands over my ears. “I’d have preferred not knowing.”

  Regardless of whether we liked it or not, it seemed to have the desired effect. Zombies began pounding on the door, and one of them managed to turn the knob, so the door began to open. Smoke poured into the room, and Jake and I had a hard time pushing back on the dresser. Our eyes were starting to water and it was getting hard to breathe.

  “Time to go!” Jake said. I motioned for him to go and he shook his head at me. “Not this time, bro. You’re heading out. Give me your gun, in case I need to buy some time.”

  I handed it over, and went to the window. Julia was waiting and I told her I would be going first, in case there was a problem on the ground.

  “You think I can’t handle a zombie?” She challenged, with a little gleam in her eye.

  “One, yes. Five, not so much. Remember the house in the city?” I reminded her of her hiding in a closet.

  “Oh sure, you had to bring that up.” Julia sounded down, but she handed over the sheet.

  “This isn’t getting easier!” Jake yelled from across the room.

  “Gone!” I yelled back. I slipped out the window and slid down the rope of sheets. I tried to avoid the first floor window, and jumped the last six feet, pulling out my tomahawk and one of my knives. Julia was right behind me and landed heavily. She got up, and checked herself for injuries, finding none except to her pride. I knew better than to comment.

  On the ground, there weren’t any zombies nearby, but I thought I saw movement around the front. I looked up for Jake and watched him fly out of the window, trailing the sheets he held in both hands. The rope went taut, and Jake snapped around, slamming face first into the side of the house. He let go of the rope and fell the last five feet, landing on his back.

  I wanted to go over and help him, I really did. But I couldn’t do much more than stand there and silently shake from the laughter that kept me from moving to help. Julia was in no better shape, holding her hand over her mouth and facing away.

  Jake didn’t help the situation. He lay sprawled on the ground and made a noise like a cross between a moan and a burp. Every time he made the noise, I started laughing again.

  After a few minutes, I was able to help, somewhat. I went over to Jake, and grabbed him by an arm. I dragged him away from the house, which was showing signs of a serious fire. I pulled him to his feet and he stood there holding his nose and his back.

  “Heh, heh. Jake, heh, you okay? Hee hee.” I tried to be serious, but it wasn’t working. Julia was trying to hold it in, but air kept getting out and it sounded like her mouth was farting. That didn’t help at all.

  Jake leaned back, checked his hand for blood, and said, “Ow.” He shook his head and twisted his torso. “Seemed like a good idea when I went over it in my mind.”

  “At least you didn’t say ‘Watch this,’” I said, returning to the land of the sane. “Come on, let’s see if we need to finish off anyone.” We went towards the front of the house, and through the windows, we could see flames were erupti
ng out of the middle of the floor and up along the walls. The old wood in the building was perfect fuel for the fire, and it was spreading quickly.

  Smoke was pouring out of the second floor windows, and anything living in there would have been dead a while ago. The dead things were still moving around, oblivious to the smoke and flames. On the first floor, several zombies had already caught fire, and were setting alight anything they bumped into. It looked like this was going to be quite the campfire in a few minutes.

  In the front of the house, three zombies got up from their feast to come at us. I reached for my gun, only to realize Jake had it. I turned to Jake but he already had it out. He fired from the hip, and in three seconds, three shots rang out, and three zombies fell completely dead.

  I was stunned. “What the hell was that? When we’re on the range, you couldn’t hit the side of a barn if you were standing inside it. You been holding out on us?”

  Jake shrugged. “Can’t explain it. If I take the time to aim, I nearly always miss. If I just snap a shot at something, I always hit it. It’s like my brain turns off and lets my body do what needs to be done.”

  I shook my head. “Well, why not?” Julia just watched with a smirk on her face. “Gimme back my gun.”

  Chapter 34

  We reached the spot where the zombies were and stopped cold. On the grass, there was a person, or rather what used to be a person. His hands were tied behind his back, and his mouth was gagged. He was wearing nothing more than a pair of underwear, and his legs, the parts that weren’t chewed on, looked like they had been cut with something very sharp. His insides had been ripped out and eaten, and his face and throat were torn apart as well. His legs had huge strips of muscle torn away, and there was a lot of blood all over the place.

  Jake looked the man over, then took his knife and used it to lever the man onto his stomach. The man’s back was a mass of small wounds, and they looked like burns from where I was standing. As a precaution, Jake stabbed the man in the head, making sure he didn’t come back later.